


Material Girl

by PumpkinDoodles



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-08-22 07:30:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 31,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16593533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PumpkinDoodles/pseuds/PumpkinDoodles
Summary: Darcy Lewis has spent her whole life hiding behind bulky sweaters and glasses. She'd rather people assume she's not an Omega--and mostly, they do. People tend to assume your type based on appearance. Only one person at SHIELD has noticed and, thank God, she and Brock Rumlow can't stand one another. Darcy's not letting her status change her life. Not at all.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing! Fair warning: This is me riffing more on the social stereotypes I can work into the A/B/O trope (think those body typing & color guides that will tell you that you're an Apple-shaped body with Spring coloring or something so you should wear X, Y, or Z), so there won't actually be a lot of sex in this one. If that's what you're looking for, it's out there, but this ain't it.

“This outfit is _the_ spring choice for Alpha women,” the fashion consultant on _America Now_ was saying on the bedroom television when Darcy got out of the shower, wrapped herself in a towel, and lifted her glasses off the counter. “Notice the sleek lines and monochromatic color palette? We’ve mirrored that in our model’s a-line bob and smoky eye.” The morning news segments had ended, replaced by softer segments, Darcy realized. She’d turn the TV off as soon as she finished getting some of the water out of her hair and brushing her teeth.

“That sends a message that you’re not to be messed with, correct?” _America Now’s_ host, Jenna-Gray Baker said. “As an Alpha, I’ve always preferred tailored looks. I tell my stylist that ruffles and lace and long hair is for Omegas, not me!”

“Exactly, Jenna-Gray. You always want to send the right signals for your type,” the consultant chirped. “Alphas embody distinction and strength, Betas are more practical. Our Beta model is wearing neutrals. When you’re a Beta, you can dress in more casual fashions. I like a seventies look for Betas. Think paisleys, browns, lots of flowy shapes.”

“I think of Betas as the California types,” Jenna-Gray said.

“That’s a great way of putting it. A stylish Beta still has a laidback look. As you can tell, this is our Omega outfit. Omegas are so feminine and alluring, they need those sexy details and a more romantic look in hair and makeup—“

“Everyone knows Omegas are our Marilyns, our Material Girls!” Jenna-Gray said, laughing.

 

Darcy groaned and clicked the television off. “That is so stupid,” she murmured to herself, slapping on her suppressant patch and sighing. Darcy hated being an Omega. It was something she’d hidden about herself since she was a preteen. She had never felt like she fit the Omega stereotypes. No part of her younger self had ever felt sexy the way an Omega was supposed to be.

There was a famous 1960s guidebook for Omegas, _Finding Your True Feminine._ Darcy had looked at it once, when it got passed around in her middle school library. It had quizzes for “identifying your Omega role model” that told you whether you were a Marilyn Monroe Omega—sexy, flirtatious, fond of calling your Alpha ‘daddy’—or a Jackie Kennedy Onassis Omega—alluring, but refined, the kind of Omega that an Alpha wanted to put a ring on immediately. The third type was the most nurturing of the feminines, the happy homemaker Omega, identified with Doris Day. Absolutely no one in Darcy’s sixth grade class had wanted to be Doris Day. And those were the good Omega qualities. The negative stereotypes were worse: Omegas were dumb. Trampy. Gold-diggers. Materialistic. Would sleep with any Alpha who showed interest. Needy. There had been a terrible pop psychology book that theorized that Omegas had poor relationships with their opposite sex parent in childhood and that made them overly submissive at sexual maturity. All of it was nonsense, of course: the psychology book was discredited when Darcy was about twenty. The author had falsified his data and been wildly heteronormative to boot.

 

Darcy had even read later that neither Jackie, or Doris, nor Marilyn were actually Omegas. Marilyn—the poor near-orphan who clawed her way to stardom by playing Omegas—was an Alpha, while Jackie had been a mutable Beta raised by an Alpha mother who expected her to marry well and meet a truly terrifying set of upper class expectations. Jackie had kept her Beta status on the DL and masqueraded as a coolly sexy Omega in public because Betas were stereotyped as frumpy and undesirable in the sexism-riddled fifties. Doris Day, like Monroe, had played sweetly blonde Omegas on screen while hiding her steely Alpha qualities. Omegas had been the most desirable American type then, when a record number of women had married young and stayed home.

 

Times changed, of course, and now it was fashionable to be a high achieving Alpha female. Darcy sometimes wondered if she could have ever pulled off Alpha-hood, had she known then what she knew now. Her mom—a single Alpha mother worried that an Omega daughter might end up an easily discarded trophy wife because of social pressure—had supported Darcy’s attempts to mask her type. Kate Lewis would have preferred that Darcy pretend to be a take-charge Alpha like her, but that was a poor fit, too. At thirteen, Darcy had been shy and tentative, not naturally confident. She’d slipped into the Beta stereotypes easily. Beta women were perceived as the least noticeable type and that had suited her fine—back then. She’d preferred cozy sweaters, glasses, and comfortable leggings to sharp suits. The worst thing you could say about a Beta was that they were total frumps.

 

It was only now, her first day at SHIELD as Jane’s assistant-slash-lab manager, that Darcy wished she had a power suit to hide behind. Of course, a real Alpha wouldn’t actually care: Jane wore plaids. People assumed she was a Beta, until they got in her way. Darcy hadn’t been fully cognizant of it at twelve or thirteen--she’d just known that she was uncomfortable with her type--that the assumptions were grounded in centuries-old gender stereotypes. Just like everyone assumed Captain America was an Alpha, until Steve outed himself as a self-sacrificing and sensitive Omega with an attraction to strong Alpha partners (Peggy Carter, Bucky Barnes) of both genders. It had been the best publicity Omegas had in a few decades, but Darcy stayed in her Omega closet. Steve was in a serious relationship with the now-liberated Winter Soldier. As a single Omega woman, Darcy faced different pressures. When she’d tried online dating as an Omega a few years ago, her message box had been flooded with aspiring sugar daddies. Really old sugar daddies. It was gross. She hadn’t even shared any photos. She’d deleted the account and gone back to her old fake Beta account. She attracted less men, but they were generally less creepy. She assumed the same would be true at SHIELD.

 

So, Darcy did what she always did: she looked for her brownest, most shapeless sweater for workday one. If she couldn’t scare off nosy people with an Alpha glare a la Jane, she’d fade into the woodwork, like always. Most people relied so heavily on the visual shorthand of dress and appearance stereotypes, it was easy. No one had ever discovered her secret before--it was something she told people rarely. Jane knew, of course, because she was an Alpha who used her nose, when she wasn’t Science’d Out. She sometimes joked that she and Thor got the platonic benefit of Darcy’s nurturing Omega side: Darcy set up Jane’s dentist appointments, made sure she had groceries, and generally mother-henned her, in a semi-sarcastic way. Ian had never guessed, but it had been a factor in the end of their relationship. Once she told him, he got paranoid that she’d run off with an Alpha and stopped trusting her like he had when he thought they were both Betas.

 

***

“The online match places, they make Alphas send in a dirty t-shirt now,” Jack Rollins explained to Steve. “They cut it into strips. So, your potential match gets to smell you first, as a courtesy.”

“Huh,” Steve said. He thought of the smell of Bucky’s favorite shirt or the scent from his hair and scalp that clung to his baseball caps. “Makes sense to me.”

“Why don’t you do that, Rumlow?” Natasha Romanoff asked him. The media often claimed the Black Widow was a super sexy Omega, but she was really an Alpha bonded to the mutable and category-defying  Bruce Banner. Mostly that meant Bruce cooked and brought her wine. Happily. She could handle it when he hulked out. “Finally find your Omega?” she asked the STRIKE Commander.

“I’m not finding my Omega through a damn website, Romanoff,” Rumlow replied. Of course the websites were using t-shirts now, he thought. It was a tacit admission that their forms and algorithms and questionnaires were inadequate.

“Why not?” Natasha asked.

“Because,” he said flatly. When he met his Omega, he would know. There had been a few women over the years that he’d seriously considered while they dated, but none of them had smelled quite right. Brock Rumlow had been raised in a family of well-matched Sicilians. He was superstitious. His nonna—Annunziata Rumlow was a classic strong-willed Alpha like himself—had taught him that he would know his match on smell. She had known his Omega grandfather in a few seconds and one breath. He’d smelled like baking rosemary bread, she’d told everyone, and she’d practically dragged him to a priest that afternoon. His grandfather had been in Palermo almost by accident, helping a friend. Fate, Annunziata said. You didn’t find your match through mouse clicks, fate brought them to you. From childhood, Brock had been raised to use his nose to evaluate potential compatibility, not surface appearance. It was old-fashioned, but it saved you from meeting someone who was perfectly nice, but smelled off.  He was fine with waiting. Once he’d met his Omega, he’d leave field work. It was irresponsible to stay in the field when you had someone else’s welfare to consider, really. Although he’d always imagined his Omega would be delicate somehow. Someone who needed him.

 

***

“We’ve got that meeting with Roberts this week, I’ve got to see the forensics on the last mission, and everybody needs to download the new reporting format--” Rumlow told the other STRIKE agents as they returned to their offices. He paused. There was a scent in the elevator, Rumlow realized. Warm somehow. Coconuts? Fruit and rich vanilla and...what the hell was that, he wondered? Was it food? The elevator doors opened and shifted the air in the small glass box. There was a sensory impression of vanilla cake sweetness and juice on his tongue when he inhaled, like biting into a chunk of pineapple upside down cake. Rumlow flared his nose, breathing deeply. “You smell that?” he asked.

“Boss?” Jack said. “Smell what?”

“Nevermind.” He must just be hungry. It was probably someone’s birthday in the building. “Download the new reporting format,” Rumlow finished. “Someone help Cap if he gets into trouble with the system.”

“Yes, sir,” several voices said at once. Several people grinned. It was almost cute to watch Cap struggle with technology.

 

Each time the doors opened, Rumlow expected to smell that cake smell again, but all he got were the familiar office scents: coffee, printer ink, cologne, someone heating something atrocious--nausea spaghetti--in the microwave on the break room floor. The pleasant smell faded as the elevator rose. How strange.

 

***

He was finishing meeting with the other STRIKE teams that week when he smelled it again. Pineapple upside down cake. He half turned his head and looked through the glass in the door, fully expecting to see someone passing with a sheet cake or a bakery box. But there were two women waiting in the hallway. Both brunettes. One of them, the plain one in glasses, was pushing a cart. The other checked her watch, looking impatient. She was stunningly beautiful, in a refined way, despite her lack of makeup and messily pulled back hair. He sat up a fraction. It was 1:03, he noted.  He spoke. “Roberts, not to interrupt”—bullshit, but social niceties were part of the deal—“does someone else have this room booked for one?” Brock asked.

“Oh, look at that, I ran over,” Roberts said, chuckling. Roberts always ran over. Everyone began to shuffle out, gathering their things, pushing back chairs, and talking quietly.

“Survived another meeting that could have been an email, mate,” Jack joked in a low voice. It was his favorite American saying.

“Yeah,” Brock said, his real attention focused on the hallway. Was it actually the impatient woman who smelled that good?

 

“I had this room booked for one,” the first woman who walked through the door said crisply. “Not 1:02 or 1:05. You ate into my presentation time—“

“I’m really sorry, Dr. Foster,” Roberts said. Ah, Brock thought. He knew Jane Foster was a bonded Alpha. Thor’s girlfriend. He inhaled, not sure what to expect. Did she smell like cake? If she smelled that delicious, no wonder Thor had given up Asgard...

She walked past his chair. No. Jane Foster smelled slightly vanilla-ish, but it was the soft vanilla of old books, mixed with a slight gingerbread note. Pleasant, but not spectacular. Maybe it was something from a bakery after all. Foster’s Beta assistant--a brunette in glasses and a heavy sweater--was struggling to ease her cart over the door’s threshold, as Foster gave Roberts a mini-lecture on timeliness. Brock repressed a chuckle. Go Foster, he thought. He got up from his chair to help the hapless assistant. What was her name? Lewis, his brain supplied. Betas usually had fainter, less complex natural smells. There was some poor Beta on floor five who smelled like cut bell peppers and he had the strongest scent of any Beta Brock had ever met. The cake smell obviously wasn’t the mousy assistant. Still, it was rude to treat Beta women like the wallpaper.

“Can I help you with this?” he said.

“Thanks,” she said. She had her earbuds in and reached up to remove one. The motion of her swinging hair sent a wave of sweet pineapple in his direction.

“It’s you,” he said suddenly, mind reeling from the intensity of her scent up close. She wasn’t a Beta. She was an Omega, he realized.

“What?” she said, frowning.

“It’s you,” he repeated.

***

 

“Me who?” Darcy said jokingly. He didn’t smile back at her.

“May I speak to you about your security, Miss Lewis?” the guy helping her with the cart asked quietly. “After this meeting? ”

“Security?” she repeated. What could this guy want? He was obviously a hyper Alpha, but she usually never caught their eye. Most high-ranking Alphas looked for really flashy Omega females as partners: sexy clothes, makeup, hair extensions, the whole deal.

“Yeah,” he said, expression blank and unreadable.

“It ends at two,” Darcy supplied.

“All right,” he said. “Brock Rumlow, STRIKE Alpha.” Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me, Darcy thought. They named the STRIKE teams _that_? Of course they did. She realized that he was staring at her intently. How weird, Darcy thought.

“Did you need anything else?” she said, trying for some of Jane’s cool manner. Too late, she realized he could read it as a come on. He flared his nostrils and then smirked slowly at her.

“I’ll see you at two,” he said, following a taller man out of the room. He half looked back at her before he disappeared.

 

“What’s going on?” Jane said quietly, when Darcy rolled the cart of supplies over to her.

“I dunno. He wants to talk about our security at two?” Darcy whispered back.

“Bullshit,” Jane said. “He caught a whiff of you.”

“Jane,” Darcy said in a voice barely above a whisper, “Shhh. Besides, in five years, nobody’s even noticed, including Ian.” She’d switched to low-dose suppressants--healthier, supposedly--because she hadn’t had a problem in so long.

“Ian was anosmic,” Jane said. “He couldn’t even smell the soap aisle at Whole Foods and that’s all patchouli. I won’t leave you alone with this guy, Darce.”

“Thank you,” Darcy said, giggling. “But how would that guy ever look past my trusty glasses and sweater contraceptive duo?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll get you my Birkenstocks, too,” Jane joked. “I should have known some pushy Alpha asshole would be trying to steal my Platonic Lifemate around here.”

“Jane, you’re an Alpha,” Darcy reminded her.

“That’s how I know,” Jane said.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On Midgard, we call it weird......

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own nothing! Thanks for your comments and kudos. Y'all are great!

Brock Rumlow walked back to his desk at SHIELD and pulled up the electronic SHIELD files for Puente Antiguo. All of Darcy Lewis’s pre-employment information was still accessible to him, at his clearance level. He scanned the page:

_Born in 1987, Greenville, NC to Kate and James Lewis. Parents divorced in 1991. Raised in North Carolina and Virginia, mother, primary custodial parent._

_BA in political science, Culver. Magna Cum Laude._

_Assistant to Jane Foster since 2010. Beta._

_Beta._

 

All her documents had her listed officially as a Beta. It couldn’t be right. No Beta had ever smelled that good to him. Not in thirty years. He looked at the biographical information again. Was it possible she was a Baptist Beta? Oh no, he thought sadly. That had to be it. The poor woman. He sat, tapping his pen on the desk, emotions churning from sympathy to anger. Parents who did that to their kids ought to be jailed, he thought. It was very nearly abuse. Had she spent her whole life struggling to suppress her nature to please others?

 

***

 

Darcy applauded when Jane finished her presentation. The other attendees--all members of the R&D department--looked suitably impressed by Jane’s wild scrawl of calculations and twelve-syllable words on the conference room whiteboard. Everyone was chatting afterwards when a shadow darkened the door. Jane looked over. It was the Rumlow guy again. Jane had to suppress a defensive reaction on Darcy’s behalf. It wasn’t even two o’clock yet. Was he really going to hassle Darcy because he’d noticed her smell? It was her first week at SHIELD, Jane fumed inwardly. She watched as he came to stand at Darcy’s elbow. He was hovering.

 

“What are you doing?” Darcy said to Rumlow. He’d appeared at her side.

“I, uh, wanted to talk,” he said.

“So, talk,” she said coolly. His hovering was weird. Too intimate, too close.

“Alone?” he said quietly. “Can we step into another room?”

“Okay,” she said, wanting to get it over with. He’d ask her out, she’d pretend ignorance and maintain her Beta pseudo-identity, it would all be over in a few minutes.

 

She followed him. His tactical boots squeaked on the linoleum floor. There was an empty conference room directly across the hall from Jane’s. He shut the door behind her. She’d moved over by the window. Impersonating a Beta was a delicate balance. Too much submission and he might get more insistent that she see him. Certain nervous behaviors: baring your neck, flushing, sweating, were paradoxically erotic to some Alphas. A percentage of Alphas were weird as hell, after all. It was theorized that most serial killers were Alphas raised in abusive homes; stripped of the ability to empathize and unable to show affection in healthy ways, they turned to twisted forms of dominance. When she dealt with new environments and unknown Alphas, Darcy was pretty careful. She wore her hair over her neck, covered herself with scarves, and dressed modestly until she sussed things out. Then she could relax a little more. She also kept space between herself and an Alpha, just like she was doing now. Still, she looked at him. Too little eye contact might be perceived as too submissive. “What did you want to ask me?” she said quietly, as if she didn’t expect it.

“This is, uh, more difficult than I thought it would be,” he said. “I don’t want to be too aggressive with you, given your background--”

“My background?” she said.

“I saw you were listed as a Beta in your file,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“You looked at my file?” Darcy said, incredulous. “You can’t just _look at my information._ That is an invasion of privacy.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay, I won’t tell anyone.”

“Won’t tell anyone what?” Darcy said, frowning.

“That you’re really an Omega,” he said.

“I’m a Beta,” she said flatly. “You’re wrong.”

“Look, I saw that you’re from the south. I know how it can be in those conservative families. I don’t care if you’re a Baptist Beta, Darcy,” he said.

“You think my parents _made_ me be a Beta?” she said, insulted. Baptist Betas was the nickname given to Alpha and Omega girls forcibly raised to be Betas in religious households. Darcy had always found it ironic. You’d think large families would love Omega daughters, but the wider cultural linkage between Omegas and sex made many super-conservative people extremely nervous. They thought Omegas were potential sluts and Alphas were at risk to grow up to be loud feminazis or lesbian witches. The father on one of those reality tv shows featuring thirteen homeschooled children had even started a program called _Building Beautiful Betas_. It was all about raising daughters who had Omega-level submissiveness with the shyness and modesty stereotypically associated with Betas. His daughters weren’t allowed to wear makeup, cut their hair, or wear pants. Much less watch television, date, or, you know, ‘front’ hug people. He claimed he could turn any type of girl into one of his Beta Belles. Darcy shuddered inwardly; you knew a Beta Belle by her denim jumper, white sneakers, and waist-length hair. It was a painfully visible social role, like cosplaying as Amish person, only with uglier shoes. She was definitely not a Baptist Beta. Who would even think--? “Are you serious?” she repeated.

“Yeah,” he said. "It doesn't matter to me, whatever they've told you that you ought to think--" She was so surprised by the pitying way he was looking at her, as if he was being just oh so evolved and sensitive while he insulted her entire family and her home, that she actually lost her temper and got visibly angry.  

“You’re a moron,” she told him. “Have you ever even been to the south? I’m wearing leggings! Don’t pretend to be so liberal-minded when you actually have no idea what you’re talking about.” He looked stunned by her outburst.

“Look, there’s no need to lie and insult me,” he said in an aggrieved voice. “I might be from New York, but I’m here to make you an offer. A real offer. You wouldn't have to pretend anymore."

“Yeah, well, you can take your Chinese food or your New York style pizza or whatever you were thinking I’d be just thrilled to have and give it to someone who is, you know, _actually an Omega._ I won’t be sleeping with you, pal,” Darcy said. She had possibly just said too much, she thought. She put her hand over her mouth in horror. “Shit. Shit.”

He smirked at little. “I know what you are,” he said. “I can smell you. I smell you from here. In the elevators, in the hallway….you smell like pineapple upside down cake. I’ve never met anybody who smells as good as you smell.”

“It’s perfume,” Darcy lied. “That’s not me, that’s Walgreens.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head slowly.

“I’m not going on a date with you,” Darcy told him. “You’re misinformed.”

“I don’t want to date,” he said.

“What?’ Darcy said, confused.

“I want to bond with you,” he said.

“Are you insane? It’s not 1914,” she said. People dated now. They got to know each other before formalizing their relationship. Nobody offered a bond on first meeting but weirdos. Most people dated for a year. Six months was rushing it.

“It’s a legitimate offer,” he said, sounding all put out again.

“No one does that,” she said. “No one.” She marched out and left him standing there.

 

“What happened?” Jane said. She was standing in the hallway, looking prepared to scrap, Darcy thought. A few of the R&D people were still around. They looked a little worried.

“He, uh, mistook me for an Omega. He must be nose-blind,” Darcy said, shrugging. “Or clothes-blind.” She gestured towards her sweater. The R&D people laughed; a few seconds later, Rumlow stepped out, gave her a strange look, then walked away.

 

***

 

“Okay, what really happened?” Jane said, once they were alone at Jane and Thor’s apartment.

“He knows I’m an Omega. He looked at my freaking file, Jane! He assumed I was a Baptist Beta and I yelled at him. You should have seen the patronizing way he _made me an offer_ ,” she said, doing air quotes. Thor sat up, looking surprised.

“What do you mean, made an offer? Like a date?” Jane said.

“He offered me a bond. He’s crazypants,” she said.

“He did what?!” Jane said, sounding horrified.

“I know! Who does that?” Darcy said.

“Nobody,” Jane said. “Except weirdos.”

“Uh-huh, that’s what I thought, too,” Darcy said. Thor made a noncommittal noise.

“What?” Jane said.

“Commander Rumlow is known to be old-fashioned,” Thor said. “On Asgard, we would call him a follower of the Norns? I do not know what they would say on Midgard?”

“Weiiiiiird,” Jane said. “We would say weird.” Darcy grinned at her. “What?” Jane said.

“I was just thinking of the Weird Sisters,” Darcy supplied. “From Shakespeare?”

“Oh,” Jane said, shrugging. “I slept through that class. It was the same semester as Astronomy 101.”

“Old-fashioned how?” Darcy said to Thor, curious.

“He will not do the matchings of the computer and insists he would know his match by smell, My Lightning Sister. Most Midgardians--even Alphas--do not rely on their smell sense as he does. He has made a study of cultivating it for work, I have seen. Last week he smelled explosives from ten feet away,” Thor said, munching on pretzel. “You are the match, then.”

“I am not,” Darcy said, heart sinking. If he really used his sense of smell on the daily, that meant he would be smelling her in the building. Dammit.

“He’s on STRIKE Alpha, right? Maybe I should talk to Steve?” Jane said.

“No, no, I don’t want this to get any weirder. As far as he knows, I’m an actual Beta. I’ll order a scent blocking spray or something to mask my natural smell more,” Darcy said, reaching for her laptop. “Do I really smell like Pineapple Upside Down cake?” she asked Jane.

“Hmmm,” Jane said, picking up Darcy’s arm and smelling it. “Yeah, you do. Or, like that Dole Whip at Disney? It’s not that strong to me, though.”

“He says he can smell when I’ve been in the elevator,” Darcy said quietly.

“Why are you whispering?” Jane said, laughing.

“I don’t know! It feels like a secret,” Darcy said, as Thor sniffed at her arm and shook his head.

“I am afraid I am no help,” he said. “I do not know this Pineapple Upside Down.”

“It’s very good,” Jane admitted. “You realize this means he thinks you’re juicy, right? Or sweet and syrupy? He wanted to bond with you _immediately._ ” She snorted.

“Shut uppppppppp,” Darcy said. “This is embarrassing.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief trip back to 1998....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own nothing! Thanks for your comments and kudos.

She’d put a rush order on the scent blockers, but Darcy also googled ways to mask her own scent before work the next day. It was sort of the opposite of what deer hunters did: she should wash with a strongly fragranced soap, use scented shampoos and hair products, and dry her clothes with a fabric softener. Even a scented lotion would mask a little of her natural smell. She picked out a turtleneck, made sure to wear deodorant, and left a message for her physician about maybe switching back to her old, higher dosage suppressants in her new Alpha-heavy workplace. If she smelled sweet, she could counterbalance, she thought. Next, she called Jane. “I need something not-sweet, don’t I?” she said, looking at the perfumes she normally wore: Coty Vanilla Musk and Outremer’s Vanille. Both sweet and candylike. “Both my perfumes are vanilla, Jane. Have I been unconsciously coordinating my products with my natural scent?” she asked.

“Possibly,” Jane said. “Do you want me to bring you that peppermint oil I have for ants in the lab? I think we can dilute it into a spray?”

“Good idea,” Darcy said. “Any other ones?”

“I’ll look at my stuff, see you in twenty minutes,” Jane said. Jane and Thor were picking her up for work. She was kind of a packrat, so it was more likely she’d have something oddly useful at the back of her cabinet than Darcy.

“I can’t believe I didn’t consciously realize I was doing that,” Darcy said looking at her perfume bottles and shaking her head. Darcy had so thoroughly Beta’d herself that she hadn’t been aware of her own smell. She didn’t smell Alphas, either, unless she got to know them pretty well. It was funny: once she knew an Alpha, she would pick up how attractively they smelled, but not before. She’d met Clint Barton a half-dozen times before it registered that he smelled incredible, like cherry tobacco and almond liquor. By then, he was a pal.

 

 

“I have it, the perfect thing,” Jane said, when Darcy hopped into the back of the car at the curb. Jane was driving and Thor was sitting up front. He turned and beamed at Darcy.

“I have been sent the products of, uh, personal grooming?” Thor told Darcy. He handed her a little bottle.

“Egyptian musk?” Darcy said, sniffing the cap and reading the label.

“It’s supposedly unisex, but it’s very assertive and not at all feminine. I think it’ll knock your scent out and replace it with something that reads as Alpha,” Jane said seriously. “If that doesn’t work, I’ve got some of those grandma rose soaps from my grandma’s in the bag.”

“Do you mind if I put it on in the car?” Darcy said.

“Go ahead,” Jane said. “I don’t want him getting all up in my lab space today.”

“Gee, thanks,” Darcy said, dabbing her neck with the roll-on bottle. She did a bit at her wrists, too. The musk did lean stereotypically masculine and Alpha-ish. Darcy kept catching whiffs of it as they drove and it gave her the oddest feeling: like a man--a stranger--was sitting with her in her seat. Ghostly, she thought.

 

When they got into the lab, Jane saw it first. “Uh-oh,” she said.

“What?” Darcy said. They’d stopped for coffee and muffins. She and Thor were juggling cups and a large paper bag of orange-cranberry muffins.

“Someone has left you a present,” Jane said. There was a big box on Darcy’s desk.

“A present?” Darcy said nervously.

“A courting present, if I had to guess,” Jane said.

“If this is cheesy lingerie, I’m going to scream and then I’m going to tase him. Also, Thor, you can hit him with Mew-Mew,” Darcy said.

“Aye,” Thor said, nodding. He was eating his muffin and smiled brightly.

“Who even does this anymore?” Darcy said out loud. She poked the box with a finger. “I thought the big trend was experience gifts now?” She had never been courted, but there seemed to be magazine articles about how the best modern gifts weren’t material things, but activities--memories, really--that couples did together: trips, concerts, museums to bond emotionally before the sex. Not stuff. Jane shrugged.

“Thor and I never did that,” she said. “What would I give him for courting that he doesn't have? Pop Tarts? He brings me science stuff from Asgard, though.” Thor and Jane were somewhat out of the loop, since he was an Asgardian and didn’t fall under their categories. There was an emerging field of study all about exceptions--people with mixed traits, Asgardians, etc.--who didn’t fit neatly into the three boxes.

“Ughhhhhhh,” Darcy said. “Should I send it all back marked ‘return to sender’ or something?”

“Aren’t you a little bit curious? I want to see what the weirdo thinks is a good courting present,” Jane said. “Like, what if he thinks you’re soooo repressed and it’s a bunch of sex toys?”

“You and Thor can have them,” Darcy said dryly.

“Thank you, my sister,” Thor said cheerfully. “That is most generous.”

“Phfffft,” Darcy said. “Let’s open it, then? If it’s toys, I might need to embarrass him with at least one of them….of course, that would out me to all of SHIELD.”

“Argh, I hadn’t thought of that,” Jane said. Darcy inhaled.

“Okay, here goes,” she said, popping open the box lid. Inside, there was a layer of tissue paper and a brief note in a inky scrawl: _Consider this the first of many gifts. -BR_

 

Darcy rolled her eyes, then lifted the tissue paper. She was expecting something truly embarrassing and borderline inappropriate, so for a moment, she didn’t know what to say.

“Oh, Darce,” Jane said. “It’s beautiful.”

“Jane, it’s a...blanket?” Darcy said.

“It’s a quilt. It looks handmade,” Jane said. She sounded too impressed, Darcy thought.

“Yes, it’s so touching that he wants to have sex with me on something that wasn’t made in a factory,” Darcy said archly. Jane lifted the quilt out carefully. She was smiling. If Rumlow didn’t want this stuff back, she’d give the quilt to Jane, Darcy decided.

“Awww, there are cute little scented candles and a robe in here, too,” Jane said. “The candles are comfort scents, not sexy scents. He’s trying to set a certain mood.”

“I’m not even having a _time_ for a certain mood right now,” Darcy pointed out. “Isn’t that a bit presumptuous of him?”

“Possibly,”Jane admitted. “It’s maybe a breach of etiquette to give you gifts now, but on the other hand, you’re at your most clear-headed now. No hormones swaying your judgment. Can I send a picture of this quilt to my Grandma Applebaum? She’s in a quilting circle.”

“Sure,” Darcy said. Jane’s phone camera went _click-click._ Darcy ate her muffin and thought.

 

“Why are you frowning?” Jane asked, a few minutes later.

“Because you realize he thinks I need comforting because I’m traumatized, right? He really believes I’m ‘some tremblin’ little rabbit full of unsatisfied desires,’ Jane,” Darcy said. She’d done air quotes around the line from one of her favorite Joanne Woodward movies. “He doesn’t actually think I’ve made this choice myself, does he?”

“Hmmm,” Jane said. “Good point. Oh, Grandma says that pattern is called Dresden Plate and that’s a very nicely done quilt.”

“I think I need to return these,” Darcy said.

“Even the quilt?” Jane said.

“Yes,” Darcy said. She picked up their office line and called Rumlow’s desk number. He answered on the second ring.

“Yes?” he said brusquely.

“It’s Darcy Lewis,” she said. His entire manner shifted.

“Baby,” he practically crooned, “did you get your things? Do you like ‘em? Is there anything you want to change?”

“That’s what I want to discuss with you,” Darcy said. “Can we meet for lunch this week?”

“Absolutely. Today, one o’clock work fo—don’t interrupt me, Smith,” Darcy heard him snap suddenly. He was using a dominant tone. She flinched instinctively. “I’m sorry, baby,” he said, returning to his placating courting voice. He thought she was nervous and needed calming before she could be safely mounted, like a skittish horse, Darcy realized. It would be laughable if she wasn’t so offended by how patronizing it was. “One o’clock today?” he said, sounding hopeful.

“Sure,” she said coolly. “We have things to discuss.”

 

***

Darcy had been in her last years of elementary school when she became aware--really horrifyingly aware--of the existence of different types of sexualities. Their sex ed teachers had tried to introduce the concepts carefully, alongside distributing pads and deodorant “for your changing body.” Of course, everyone was far more interested in the graphic details. That meant there were all kinds of crazy sex rumors. The school system was too nervous to introduce real details about sex, so the rumor mill filled it in. Usually inaccurately. There was also weird speculation about what everyone would be. Every handsome, popular boy was presumed to be a future Alpha, every pretty, popular girl a future Omega.

 

“Wouldn’t it be great to be an Omega, though?” Darcy’s friend Kristen said, one night. They were eleven, having a sleepover and watching _Dirty Dancing._ Patrick Swayze’s character was their model for what an Alpha might look like, so the pretty and slightly wishy-washy Baby had to be an Omega. Plus, she was tanned and thin and had blonde highlights. That was the typical onscreen female they guessed was an Omega in Darcy’s childhood: a fragile blonde who needed rescuing. Each of the subtypes had a variety of advocacy organizations, so types were never mentioned explicitly onscreen. There was too much risk that, say, the Beta Anti-Defamation Organization or the Alpha Benevolence Society might sue you for a negative portrayal. Instead, everything was done as allegory. Sometimes actors discussed their concepts for their characters’ backstories in the magazines and said they’d played a character as an Alpha or a Beta, but mostly, you guessed.

“You think so?” Darcy said. At eleven, she was slightly chubby, had dark hair, glasses, and was nobody’s idea of a future Omega. No one had even suggested it as a possibility.

“We could be popular,” Kristen said wistfully.  

“Yeah,” Darcy said.

“I wouldn’t want to get a bad Alpha, though,” Kristen said.

“A bad Alpha?” Darcy said. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t know? Isn’t your mom an Alpha? Hasn’t she warned you?” Kristen said, taking on the air of someone with more knowledge and experience than she really had. Probably.

“Warned me about what?” Darcy asked.

“Well,” Kristen said, giggling, “Lauren got this really _bad_ movie. She’s writing a paper about it for her college class, all about good Alpha men and bad Alpha men. My parents wouldn’t let me watch it, but Lauren says I’m old enough. We could watch it?” Lauren, Kristen’s cousin, was babysitting them that weekend.

“What’s it called?” Darcy said.

“Lauren!” Kristen said. “What’s your movie called?”

Lauren stuck her head in the doorway of the living room from the kitchen, where she was working on her paper. “It’s called _Final Analysis_ and it’s total bullshit,” she explained. Lauren was an Omega. Kristen giggled. “Damn it, don’t tell your mom that I said bullshit, okay?” Lauren said.

“Okay!” they said.

 

“Why is this BS?” Darcy asked Lauren, as they started the movie.

“Well, it’s a psychological thriller. Basically, it’s a rip-off of Hitchcock, but the Eric Roberts character is clearly a twisted, sick Alpha and we’re meant to think the Richard Gere character is a good Alpha, that he’ll save Kim Basinger’s Omega wife and her sister from Roberts and Alphas like him, but you’ll see how self-serving and sexist it all is,” Lauren said.

“What’s your paper about?” Darcy asked.

“I’m arguing that Gere represents the New Alpha male of the 90s. He’s more sensitive, less domineering than Roberts’ Alpha. But the Omega is still caught in the same old trap: she’s cunning, manipulative, slutty. You know, this is really what the whole Lewinsky scandal was about. Clinton’s totally a new Alpha married to another Alpha, having an affair with the worst kind of Omega stereotype,” Lauren mused.

“Oh,” Darcy said, understanding about half of it. The two of them watched the grown-up movie with rapt attention. Darcy could understand why it was easy to read the two blonde sisters as Omegas--they were vulnerable and seemingly needed protection--but the scenes where Roberts bullied Basinger made Darcy squirm in discomfort. They were confusingly violent and sexual. Wasn’t an Alpha supposed to take care of his Omega, not force her into sex?

“He’s hot,” Kristen whispered to Darcy, when Lauren left the room to get a Coke.

“What?” Darcy said, stunned. “You really think so?”

“Duh,” Kristen whispered. “You don’t think so?”

“I don’t know,” Darcy said. She found the ending of the movie--where Basinger’s abused wife abruptly became a _femme fatale_ \--even more confusing. “Why is she bad now?” she asked Lauren.

“Because she’s an Omega,” Lauren said archly. “An Omega who plotted to kill her Alpha. That makes her a bad girl, even if he was a total monster and a rapist.” Lauren clicked off the movie with her remote. “Pray to be a Beta or an Alpha,” she told Darcy and Kristen. “Being an Omega is total bullshit.”

 

“Do you think Lauren’s right? Would it be bad to be an Omega?” Kristen asked her, when they were trying to go to sleep in Kristen’s room that night. They’d already lip-synced to Will Smith’s “Miami” and watched _Practical Magic._

“I’ll never be an Omega, so I don’t think it matters, really,” Darcy said. “I would kind of like to be a witch, though.”

“You’d never have to do homework,” Kristen said, sighing wistfully.

I hope there aren’t really Alphas who do that to their Omegas, Darcy thought to herself.

  


She’d mostly forgotten the movie a few months later, when she and her mother had dinner in a nice restaurant with her aunt. It was much fancier than the places Darcy and her mom usually went--giving her an excuse to wear her favorite dress. A green sleeveless one with little flowers from the Delia’s catalog. “You look very pretty,” her aunt had told her, then immediately leaned over to Darcy’s mother. “Kate, do we know yet--?”

“No,” her mom had replied. “Besides, she’s not even twelve yet! Darcy’s too young for all that.”

“They get younger and younger every year,” Darcy’s aunt said. “Do you know, I saw a news story about girls hitting puberty at ten now? Ten! Imagine having to worry about having a ten year old Omega….” Aunt Debbie was a Beta.

 

Darcy tried to tune it all out. She wasn’t ready yet. She concentrated on not spilling shrimp scampi on her dress instead. She was focused on butter drips when she heard Debbie inhale. “Look at that poor woman, Kate,” her aunt said. “Who does that?” Darcy turned her head curiously. A couple was sitting down at the table near them. The man was wearing a dark suit, the woman a long dark dress. The man was clearly an Alpha: He fussed over his companion, taking her coat and draping it over her chair, while he gave orders to the waiter for both of them. He was being pushy and a little bit loud. At first, Darcy didn’t know what her aunt had objected to, though.

“You look nice, baby,” he was saying. “I love that dress with your hair pulled back.”

“Yeah,” the woman said, touching her neck a little self-consciously. That was when Darcy realized the dress had sheer panels around her neck and shoulders. So, you could see her collarbones--and where he’d marked her. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the woman’s neck.

“Darcy, don’t stare,” her mother said quietly. But that drew the man’s attention.

“It’s all right,” he said. “Isn’t it, honey? She’s so pretty, everyone looks at her everywhere.” He tucked his hand under the woman’s chin. “Look up, baby, look up. She’s real shy. I’m trying to break her of that habit. Someone as pretty as you ought to let people see your face,” he chided.

“If you say so,” the woman said. She blushed and looked a little embarrassed as he grinned at her.

“Still, Darcy apologize for staring,” her mother insisted. “I didn’t raise my daughter to be rude.”

“I’m sorry,” Darcy said quietly. “I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s perfectly natural,” the man said. “Your daughter is going make a pretty Omega one day, too.” Darcy heard her aunt inhale sharply again.

“I am not,” Darcy said reflexively. He chuckled and that made her bolder than she normally would have been. His expression was so smug. “How would you know?” she sassed him.

“Sweetheart, I can smell you from here,” he said. Darcy looked at her mother in alarm. She’d gone white. When they finished their meal, the couple was still there. The husband had gotten up and stopped at another table to speak to someone when the Omega caught Darcy’s eye as they passed.

“He’s really not that obnoxious, I promise,” she said, tucking a strand of Darcy’s hair that was loose around her face behind one ear. “You’ll be fine.” She smiled. Darcy’s mother pretended not to hear.

 

“Is he right?” a still-stunned Darcy said to her mother in the parking lot. “I am going to be an Omega?”

“I don’t know,” her mother said tightly. “I’ve never smelled you like _that_ , I’m your mother.”

“You can’t tell?” Debbie asked, as they got into the car.

“No,” Kate said.

“Who could?” Debbie said.

“I took her to the doctor a few months ago, she was still pre-maturity,” Kate said. “He said it could be years before the change.”

“Oh,” Debbie said. “But if that man smelled--”

“He could be lying,” Kate said. “She’s eleven. I’m not ready for this yet, Debbie. She’s a child. She’s my _baby_.”

“They can put her on suppressants, right?” Debbie said. Darcy started to cry in the backseat.

“Oh, honey, don’t cry,” her mother said. “We’ll figure this out.”

“Yeah,” Darcy said.

At some point, the oddest thing happened to Darcy’s memory of that night: she conflated the movie she’d watched with Kristen and Lauren into that real dinner, so that whenever she thought about it, the first Alpha who’d ever smelled her looked like Eric Roberts’ character in that movie and his wife looked like Kim Basinger. She couldn’t remember their actual faces. She’d blocked them out.

 

***

Darcy was supposed to meet Brock at a restaurant near the office. She was purposefully late. She’d quietly boxed up all his gifts and sent them back via SHIELD’s mail system, a few minutes after one. He’d already be gone, she thought, so there was less risk of a scene at the restaurant because she’d spurned them. She would just continue the lie. Insist his nose was wrong. She hadn’t actually smelled him yet, either.

 

The restaurant was quiet at that time of day. He actually stood up and walked over to meet her at the door. “Hey,” he said. “I was worried. You okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said. At least there was nobody around to overhear. Get this over with, she thought. Rip off the Band-Aid. He steered her towards the table with a hand near the small of her back. A waiter was looking for them curiously when they returned.

“Sweetheart, what do you want?” Brock said to her, wooing voice on.

“Just a Diet Coke, thanks,” Darcy told the waiter. The waiter gave Darcy a skeptical double-take-- _what’s he slumming with the Beta for?_ was practically written on his face _\--_ and she saw Brock bristle a little.

“Sorry,” the waiter said, shrinking back a little at his pissed off face.

“He’s an asshole, don’t pay it any mind,” Brock said to her, once the waiter had gone.

“I’m used to ignoring assholes,” Darcy said slyly. She flicked her eyes up at him, expecting some kind of reaction, but he was just looking at her.

“What’s wrong?” he said.

“I don’t understand,” Darcy said.

“You don’t smell right,” he said, nostrils flaring.

“Oh?” she said. “I hadn’t noticed. I can’t smell myself. Or you, actually. Beta thing.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Darcy's line about a "little rabbit" is quoting Joanne Woodward in "The Long, Hot Summer," where Woodward plays a 1950s schoolteacher whose rich father tries to marry her off to the too-aggressive Paul Newman.
> 
> The most relevant clip from Final Analysis, in terms of New Alphas vs. Bad Alphas in this AU: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tvmzk3Ce8-s


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apologies to the anosmic readers for how scent-heavy this chapter is....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own nothing! Thanks for your comments and kudos! Y'all are the best.

“Darcy,” Brock said, shaking his head, “you don’t have to do this with me, okay? You can be yourself with me.”

“This is me,” she told him. “That’s what I keep trying to tell you: I’m a Beta. This is me.” He shook his head and rubbed his jaw.

“No,” he said, leaning forward. “You’ve been told wrong. You have to know this. You can’t deny the effect we have on each other. You smell so good to me. I can’t stop thinking abou--”

“I sent the gifts back,” she said, cutting him off.

“What?” he said. He shifted back a fraction in surprise. “What--” The waiter appeared with their drinks and his jaw snapped shut. Darcy had made the right decision to do this in a restaurant, she thought. It contained him. “You’re rejecting my gifts?” he said in a low voice, as the waiter stepped away.

“Yes,” she said. “Don’t make a scene--”

“I’m not making a scene,” he said quietly. He leaned forward again. “How could--how can you do this? We’re a match, I know it. You don’t just reject somebody when the attraction is like thi--”

“Look, I’m not the person for you,” she told him. She traced a circle on the tabletop with her finger. “Not the right fit.” She had to suppress a smirk at her accidental double entendre, but when she looked up, she realized he looked genuinely upset.

“You are,” he said softly. “Whatever’s in the past, it doesn’t matter. You’ll be safe with me--” Darcy sighed and repressed an eye roll.

“I’m perfectly capable of keeping myself safe, thanks,” she said sharply. “I’m not some damsel in distress, Brock.” He sighed and covered his face with his hands.

“That’s not what I meant,” he said. “What I was thinking wa--”

“Really? Because it sounds like you actually think I’m, you know, _helpless without you_. Seriously?” Darcy said, interrupting him. She’d heard Steve tell that joke about Rumlow saying that ironically to him on missions before. He sat there for a minute, face still in his palms, then slid his hands down on the table and looked at her.

“Are you always so stubborn?” he said. “I’ve never met such a hard-headed Omega.”

“I keep trying to tell you, I’m not the docile little Omega you’re looking for,” she said sharply. She could feel herself getting angry. He looked at her for a second.

“No, you’re not,” he said, smirking.

“What now?” she said in frustration.

“Of course _my_ Omega would be a challenge,” he said, chuckling. He actually looked pleased, damn him. Darcy wanted to stab him, but the sharpest thing in her little rolled up restaurant napkin was a butter knife. “I thought the most difficult thing would be the waiting,” he said.

“Waiting?” Darcy said, raising both eyebrows.

“I’m forty-three, Darcy. I’ve been waiting for you to show up for twenty years. I thought everything after that would be easy,” he said.

“You were misinformed,” she said, disliking the way he’d flicked his tongue a little over his lips when he said easy.

“Mmm-hmm,” he said. He was looking at her with a gleam in his eye. “Still….”

“What?” she said.

“I can smell you now,” he said. “Your heart rate’s increased and you’re a little warm. Whatever that awful masking cologne is, it’s not strong enough to defeat your temper.” He grinned.  “You hungry?” he asked.

“I’ve lost my appetite,” she said. “I’m going to leave now.”

“I can’t say I have much of an appetite for food, either,” he said. “But we’ve got thirty minutes. You could come back to my place, wash that stuff off and tell me what you actually want for a courting gift?”

“I’m not interested in courting,” she said. “It’s antiquated and insulting. Your things will be on your desk when you get back.” She stood up and moved to walk away.

“I’m a little insulted that you don’t want to keep them. My cousin made that quilt!” he called after her. He sounded annoyingly chipper. Why was he so happy? She’d just turned him down.

 

She was getting in her car when he came bouncing out of the restaurant. “Darcy!” he said. “Darcy!”

“What?” she said, putting on her sunglasses before she rolled down her car window. It was bright out. Plus, she thought eye contact with him was a little dodgy. He had pretty eyes. Which was annoying. Everything about him seemed to be designed just to get under her skin. Like an itch. It nagged at her.

“You really can’t smell me?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

“Really?” he said, tilting his head to the side.

“I don’t--I can’t smell Alphas until I get to know them,” she admitted. “It’s a weird quirk.”

“A quirk?” he said.

“My last doctor thought it was psychosomatic or something,” she said.

“Okay,” he said, suddenly taking off his jacket.

“Wha--what are you doing?” Darcy asked. He’d tossed his jacket over the hood of her car and was taking his shirt off.

“Here,” he said, “take this.” He was standing shirtless in the parking lot, holding his shirt out.

“You want me to take your t-shirt?” she said. She was really glad she had sunglasses on. The man was fit. A not inconsiderate amount of his Omega wait time had been spent in the gym, she realized. She mostly read books or made brownies. Her brownies were really good, but not as good as his abs. Was that an actual eight pack?

“Please,” he said. “I got another one in the SUV. Take it. Keep it for awhile, see if my scent appeals to you?”

“You’re kidding,” she said.

“If you need time, I’ll give you time,” he said, leaning a little into her car window and depositing the t-shirt in her lap. “I know I’m a little polarizing, but I want a fair shot and I’m sending those gifts back to you.”

“Whyyyyyyy?” Darcy said. Polarizing? Was that a nice way of saying pushy? Obnoxious?

“Because,” he said. “What am I going to do with a second fluffy bathrobe and more marshmallow-scented candles? I’m all stocked up.” His voice was teasing.

“You’re supposed to be all angry and stomp off right now, because I’m not accepting your sex gifts,” she told him archly. “Did you not get the memo?”

“I’m not an angry person by nature. Besides, those aren’t sex gifts. I bought you those things just to make you feel cozy,” he said calmly.

“Cozy?” Darcy said incredulously. Darcy would have never connected him with ideas like coziness.

“You know, that whole _hygge_ thing? Jack’s very into it, talked my ear off about soothing ambiance during our last mission. I thought you’d be into it,” he said.

“Ohhhhhhhh,” Darcy said. “I have a ebook on that, actually.”

“See? See?” he said, grinning. He held out his palm. “Same wavelength, sweetheart.”

“Stop being so smug. I’m not high fiving a shirtless man in a parking lot,” she told him. He smirked more widely.

“How do you say that fucking word, anyway? Hoo-gah? Hee-gah?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” Darcy admitted. “Did your cousin really make that quilt?”

“Yeah,” he said. “She’s really good at sewing. She makes quilts for everybody. She has her own show on public access upstate, all about quilts. She’s the Quilt Lady of Albany.”

“The quilt lady of Albany,” Darcy repeated.

“Somebody has to be. God, you smell good to me. I hate that masking stuff, though. It’s like trying to drink my favorite coffee through a dirty sock. It’s fucking killing me, sweetheart,” he said.

“Oh, I’m sorry that my desire to be lowkey is killing you,” she said sarcastically. “Must be so difficult for you.”

“Is that what it is?” he said.

“What?” she said.

“You want to be lowkey?” he said. “That’s what you really want?”

“Yes!” Darcy said, laughing. “Finally, he gets a clue.”

“You’d rather pretend to be a Beta?” he said.

“Absolutely,” Darcy said.

“I don’t get it,” he said. “You’re choosing this?”

“Uh-huh,” she said, nodding seriously.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“Of course you don’t, all the social privileges accrue to you,” she told him. “Get your jacket off my car.”

 

She left him standing there--still without his shirt--looking baffled. She drove around the shopping center where they were until she was sure he wasn’t following, pulled into a parking space, and looked at the black t-shirt on her passenger seat. What _did_ he smell like? He’d called himself polarizing. What if he reeked or something? She looked at the t-shirt again. She ran over the bad possibilities in her head: cacophony of general man smell (like a natural version of a some too-aggressive colognes that seared your nostrils all the way to your brain when dudes walked by), sour things, gross dirt (there were some good dirt smells, some bad ones), the odor when you drove past hog farms, gasoline, smelly socks, mildew, college dorms, mothballs, sulfur-based snake repellent, ammonia, burned versions of nice things (popcorn, coffee, hair), plastic, Lysol, copper (too much like blood), an unemptied ashtray, the weird medicinal, earthy smell in the co-op of her hometown, that jarred glue you painted on with a brush, a salt marsh on days when it was hypoxic.

 

Then there were the good possibilities: used bookstore (that was Jane; Darcy had taken it as a good sign once they’d gotten to know one another), fresh cut grass, China Rain, lemonade, popcorn being popped, the coffee aisle of any grocery store, waffle cones, soap, orange sherbet, jasmine, ginger, leather, raw cookie dough, towels fresh from the dryer, pumpkin pie spice, coconut, Chanel no. 5, strawberries, red onions (Darcy hated single note rose oils and perfumes--too flat and heavy--but liked onions, go figure), salted caramel, cinnamon, the scent that clung to your fingers after you handled clementine peel, magnolia, champagne, apples, oregano, amaretto, Mr. Bubble, the smell of cereal-sweetened milk at the bottom of the bowl.

 

Darcy picked the t-shirt up tentatively--like it might explode--then buried her face in the fabric. She inhaled deeply, then dropped it like it was a hot rock. “Oh God,” she said. “Oh my freaking God.”

 

***

“How did it go?” Jane said, when she returned to the lab. She’d hidden the t-shirt in her trunk, like it was drugs or something.

“It went...fine, I think? I don’t think he’s angry, just confused by me. He wants me to keep the gifts,” Darcy said. “He gave me the shirt off his back.”

“He gave you his shirt? That doesn’t sound like ending things?” Jane said.

“I think he’ll get it eventually. I don’t actually think he’s, like, the super-controlling type. He has this bizarre idea that I’m hiding out because I’m vulnerable and if I had him as my on-call Doberman I could be my true Omega self or something?” Darcy said. “It’s a rescue fantasy.” Which made sense to her; this was why he’d waited so long and then decided she was The One. He needed someone to rescue.

“He thinks you’re a total Cinderella,” Jane said, snorting. “It’s kind of cute, Darce.”

“That makes you the wicked stepsister, smartypants,” Darcy said.

“Please, Thor and I are totally the mice who make your dress,” Jane said. They looked up when someone knocked on the lab door. It was Jack, carrying the box. He grinned ferally.

“Gus Gus,” Darcy said, giggling, “Jack Jack is here with my ridiculous quilt.”

“It’s really pretty!” Jane insisted.

“All you Alphas stick together,” Darcy said. She went to the door. “Hi, Jack. He send you up here with that?”

“Uh-huh,” he said. “You got him all turned around, Darce.” He sounded doubtful.

“He didn’t tell you why?” Jane said. Jack shook his head.

“Nawt, he just keeps pacing around, muttering to himself, like a koala drunk on eucalyptus,” Jack said.

“Huh,” Jane said.

“You’re not going to say why?” Jack said, looking curious.

“Nope,” Jane said, taking the box. “Have you seen Thor?”

“He’s sparring with the fellas,” Jack said. “I’m headed down there now.”

“Tell him I brought him back sandwiches, please?” Darcy said. She generally avoided gyms because she was lazy. Too many wound-up Alphas in this one, probably.

“All right,” Jack said, waving cheerfully and departing.

“This is a really nice quilt,” Jane said, peeking in the box again. “And he’s keeping your secrets.”

“His cousin made the quilt. She’s the Quilt Lady of Albany,” Darcy said. She ignored the second half of Jane’s statement.

“Awwwww, that’s, well, sweet, you know?” Jane said.

“Traitor!” Darcy called, going to get coffee. “He’s trying to usurp you as my on-call Doberman, let me remind you.”

“He’ll never take you from me, I’ve got access to a Mjolnir,” Jane said.

 

She was walking towards the breakroom when she overheard two male voices. “What’d you do this weekend, Yates?” one said.

“Omega skank,” Yates said jokingly.

“The best kind of skank. They love it when you give ‘em the vitamin K,” the other man said, laughing in a gross way. They abruptly shut up when Darcy entered the room. She refilled her coffee without saying anything; she wasn’t going to engage in social niceties with creeps. As she walked out of the room, she heard Yates say something about her. “Total frump Beta,” he said in a whisper. “She didn’t even smile.”

 

Darcy rolled her eyes.

 

***

The next morning, Jane picked up Darcy for work again. “Where’s Thor?” Darcy asked, getting in the passenger seat.

“Playing with the STRIKE guys--Darce, what’s wrong? You’re all blotchy,” Jane said.

“I feel a little nauseous. I think there was something wrong with those sandwiches I picked up yesterday after that thing with Rumlow? I might have food poisoning or something?” Darcy said. Jane reached over and touched her forehead.

“You’re burning up. I’m taking you to your new doctor, okay?” Jane said.

 

As they waited in the exam room, Jane suddenly sat up. “What?” Darcy said, pulling at the edge of her paper gown.

“You don’t have food poisoning, Darce. You smell strongly all of a sudden,” Jane said.

“I smell?” Darcy said. “Oh, no. No, no, no. I haven’t had a breakthrough heat on suppressants in five years. Ughhhhhh, what I am going to do?” Just the, the doctor came in.

“Miss Lewis? I’m afraid you don’t have food poisoning--” she began.

“I know, I know, breakthrough heat. This sucks,” Darcy said, rocking a little on the exam table. She was a little crampy, in addition to the nausea.

“She hasn’t had one in years,” Jane said. “Not since--?”

“2013 or so, I remember we were in Norway,” Darcy said.

“You’re her partner?” the doctor asked Jane.

“No, her best friend,” Jane said. “And we work together. She’s unbonded.”

“What would you like to do?” the physician asked. “I can send you to a clinic. It looks like your employer-based insurance will cover it?” Darcy shook her head.

“I’d have to disclose to my employer. It might be awkward and I’m trying to avoid it,” Darcy said. “At work, I’m a Beta.”

“We work for SHIELD, lots of Alphas,” Jane said.

“Persistent Alphas,” Darcy said, thinking of Rumlow.

“I understand,” the doctor said. “I can write you some generic prescriptions and you can fill them without filing them under your insurance. I’m comfortable with that, if you know you’ll be in a safe location.”

“You can stay with me or I’ll check on you?” Jane offered. “I’ll sign any releases, if you need me to,” she told the doctor.

“That would be good,” Darcy said. “I’m having some nausea as well.”

“I’ll give you a sample pack of Cerenia for that, plus generic Omegalux for your other symptoms, you should be fine in 72 hours or so with the appropriate activities,” the doctor said. “Just be careful about lightheadedness and vertigo. The biggest issue we see with unbonded Omegas is that you’re alone and you get a little loopy and fall and hit your head.”

“Okay,” Darcy said, nodding. The doctor left to get the sample pack and Darcy started to put her clothes on again.

“That doesn’t sound so terrible,” Jane said, with a kind of forced cheerfulness. She and Thor didn't have to deal with this stuff.

“Oh, yeah, it’s just so great that I have medical providers telling me that I need to be careful not to get dizzy and crack my head open while masturbating, Jane. Fan-freaking-tastic,” Darcy said. “I cannot believe this is happening. Why is this happening?”

“Um,” Jane said.

“What?” Darcy said sharply, pulling her shirt over her head.

“Wellllll---” Jane said.

“Hand me my shoes, please,” Darcy said. “Why are these dumb tables so high and the steps down so freaking small?”

“You’re very irritable for an aroused person,” Jane said.

“Shut up, I know exactly what you’re thinking and that’s not it, okay?” Darcy said.

“So, you didn’t smell Rumlow’s t-shirt?” Jane said.

“Ughhhhhh, shut up,” Darcy said. The doctor entered again and looked at them in surprise.

“Is everything all right?” she asked, handing Darcy her prescriptions.

“She thinks I may have been triggered by a coworker,” Darcy said, sighing. “Which is ridiculous.” She glared at Jane. “I don’t feel that way about him. This has to be a random bodily thing.”

“We see it pretty frequently, actually,” the physician said. “People spend more time at work than at home, in terms of waking hours.”

“What’s the likelihood of it reoccurring for her if they stay in proximity?” Jane asked.

“You can see an increase in breakthrough heats sometimes,” she told Jane. Jane looked at Darcy significantly.

 

“I don’t even really like the way he smells,” Darcy said, after the doctor left again.

“You don’t?” Jane said.

“No, it’s weird. It’s like a good-bad smell. I can’t explain it,” Darcy said.

“So, you did smell the t-shirt?” Jane asked.

“Yes,” Darcy admitted. She wasn’t going to tell Jane that she’d actually taken it to bed with her, trying to figure out how Rumlow’s smell could be half-pleasant (yummy notes of vanilla, caramel, and dark chocolate) and half vexing (an earthy, strong patchouli note that repelled her). The combination left an intense sensory feeling on her tongue, a sweet-woodsy contrast that was like she’d bitten into a chocolate-covered caramel with a surprise Christmas tree inside whenever she inhaled. She didn’t just smell him, she felt like she’d tasted him. It had irritated her. Actively irritated her. But she couldn’t stop smelling it, either. Suddenly, she understood how provoking and provocative could have the same root meaning (she’d looked it up when she got a little nose-blind from concentrating so hard on his scent: it meant ‘to challenge or call forth’). It was _weird._

***

“Thank God for medication,” Darcy said, as they got her prescriptions filled at the CVS drive-thru. Now they had meds and clinics to help unbonded Omegas manage their symptoms. Clinics had been invented in the 1980s, after the feminist movement had done a lot of work undoing all the myths and urban legends about heat cycles. They had helped end the widespread stereotype that unbonded Omegas would literally die if they didn’t fuck some Alpha and that Omegas were a public health menace because they could inspire packs of Alphas to violently run amok during cycles. Now you only saw that in horror movies ( _The Omega Cycle VIII_ was scheduled for a late November, ahem, release).  Insurance carriers had balked at covering clinics at first, but they were fairly mainstream now. More like spas, actually.

Darcy had only been to an Omega spa once (she wasn’t rich enough for it), but she had enjoyed the cucumber bubbly water and the meditation workshops for managing arousal. The real difficulty was if you were too poor, uninsured, or lived in a country where meds were hard to obtain or taboo. The media loved to report on stories where some unlucky Omega in a conservative culture was exiled or the victim of an honor killing after she or he had sex with someone without a bond or a marriage during a cycle. Darcy hated the way the media was almost giddy whenever an Omega died in circumstances they could turn into a salacious story: _Omega Victim of Honor Killing in Tehran. Omega-Alpha Love Triangle Leads to Houston Double Murder. Gang Shooting Linked to Dispute Over Eighteen Year Old Omega. Mysterious Disappearance of Teenage Omega Patrick Nunnally in 2001 Still Haunts Hometown._

 

But mostly, the worst thing that happened to Omegas in Darcy’s position was that they were pestered by some Alpha who’d posed as a friend but really was waiting for a cycle to make a move. Darcy had heard from several Omega friends who’d had an Alpha they knew offer “no-strings fun” only to get jealous and possessive after their cycles ended. There was also workplace sexual harassment around cycles from Alphas and Betas, petty bullying from HR about medical leaves, and generally shitty behavior from Betas who didn’t understand how not-fun it was to go through and who thought you were just getting free sex leave from work. The closest reproductive thing for Betas was, maybe like, heavy periods or endometriosis. If you were unbonded and had no desire to temporarily hook up with someone, it was uncomfortable, inconvenient, and frankly, boring to talk about. “Do you want me to bring you snacks or anything like that?” Jane asked, once she’d gotten Darcy home.

“Nah,” Darcy said. “I’m good on snacks. I went to the grocery store yesterday. But you’re going to have to come up with an excuse for me not being at work, okay? A good excuse. I don’t want him to figure it out.”

“I’ll say you had a family emergency and had to leave town suddenly,” Jane said firmly.

“That would be good,” Darcy said. “If other people start asking questions, tell them my invisible relative has IBS. People never ask follow up questions about anything with the world bowels in it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My headcanon gif for this story--Darcy is totally Conan: https://gph.is/2z88T45.
> 
> I'm basing Brock's smell on that whole Angel-inspired genre of gourmand perfumes. Things that have sweet notes floating (some would say clashing?) over patchouli, like Mulger's Angel (caramel, chocolate, cotton candy + patchouli), Lancome's La Vie Est Belle (chocolate praline, berries, + patchouli), Chanel's Coco Mademoiselle (orange, vanilla, florals + patchouli). 
> 
> My favorite is probably La Maison de la Vanille's Vanille Givree des Antilles (vanilla + patchouli), which is kind of like Diet Angel and much softer and easier to wear. But if you don't have access to any of those, imagine eating Nutella while you wear patchouli oil or stand next to, like, patchouli-scented soap.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things that are real in this chapter:
> 
> -the legal doctrine of couverture (it existed in some US states until the 1970s)  
> -the Victorian Angel of the House  
> -dark chocolate Milanos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own nothing! Thanks for all your comments and kudos!

The stereotype about heat cycles was that they increased in intensity until you were practically frenzied and sex-mad, frantic and burning with desire, but that was more a porn trope than Darcy’s reality (ditto, Omegas’ heat cycles syncing up if they lived together). She’d been anxious about that when she was young; joining an anonymous online support group for Omegas as a Culver freshman, she’d realized that every Omega was a little bit different. There was no universal heat cycle, no absolutely attractive Alpha, no hard and fast--there had been lots of jokes about this--rules for being an Omega. Darcy’s cycle was more like the tides: Intense wave of desire, floods of pleasure when she climaxed, then a kind of misty-edged drowsiness as the need retreated. She ached to knot when she woke to repeat it all over again, but she didn’t burn. It was a pooling sensation of relief, she thought. Not hot, but wet. She’d been seriously involved with one Alpha at Culver--they’d broken up because he wanted to bond immediately after graduation and she wasn’t ready--and Justin had always described her as melting. Well, usually she melted.

 

Tonight, she was having trouble relaxing. She stared at the ceiling. Her brain was too busy. She couldn’t get into the right mood, even if she had the right stuff. She kicked off her sheets and decided she would take a bath. Everyone had tricks--it was less tricks than preferences, really--and Darcy liked long baths. That would help her get comfortable, she thought. Only it didn’t. She tried different things: Her favorite vibrator. Nice underwear. No underwear. Legs spread. Legs and knees together for more friction. Music. Different music. Being on her side. On her stomach. Her least favorite vibrator. She even went looking for the DVD someone had given her as a gag gift and that she never used; normally, her imagination worked just fine, even when she wasn’t in a cycle. Nothing worked. She finally gave up and just tried to go to sleep.

 

***

 

She always slept for weird blocks of time during her cycle, so Darcy woke up at noon the next day. She’d barely opened her eyes when she knew she was going to be in a bad mood. What had woken her up? Irritably, Darcy looked at the television. She’d left it on at a low volume to mask any noise she might make during the night. It was a sit-down interview with one of those Silicon Valley tech moguls. The blonde anchorwoman was narrating as they played footage of the two of them walking in his vineyard: “--having successfully launched a Mars exploration program, the forty-seven year old libertarian billionaire is now exploring ways to improve this planet. Phillip Agar’s idea? The Alpha Project.”

 

Darcy groaned. She hated this guy. He was the worst.  The screen switched to Phillip Agar sitting in an interview chair, smiling. His face had always reminded Darcy of a rodent. A mole. “What we need in 2018 is a world with more Alphas in it. We’ve got 7 billion people, Linda. Overpopulation is a serious concern, the world is more competitive than ever--” he said.

“You think designing a treatment that will turn Omegas and Betas into Alphas will help with that?” she interrupted.

“Absolutely. I think in the future, everyone will be an Alpha. Men and women. It’s not enough to be a good obedient little Beta anymore. You need to be exceptional,” he said. “Alphas are the most exceptional, driven type. That means Alphas excel in the workplace and make more valuable employees in this economy. There’s no room for just getting along, the world asks for more, more, more.” He gestured widely, as if his ideas were just oh so logical.

“Aren’t Omegas exceptional, too?” Linda asked.

“Look, it’s no coincidence that my first wife was an Omega, but my second wife is an Alpha. We’ve been taught that a submissive Omega is what every Alpha should want, but the truth is, the world has moved beyond Omegas. You needed an Omega in an agricultural society, where family labor, child raising, and homesteading was the bedrock of life. That’s all gone now. It’s last century. Now, it’s much better for families if both adults--or more than two, if you’re polyamorous, which I think has intriguing potential--work outside the home, are high achievers, and have a smaller family. One, two kids, max,” he said. “There’s no need for Omegas anymore.”

“What about the value of a nurturing Omega in a child’s life?” Linda said.

“Look, I’m sure some Omegas will still exist, but it’s much more pleasant to hire an Omega nanny for your child, but have an Alpha partner to talk to at the end of the night. That’s true equality, Linda. Alpha men have always had a premium on social respect, but we’ve got fantastic Alpha women really reshaping the world. Look at Dr. Jane Foster--”

 

“Oh em gee,” Darcy yelled at the television. “Get Jane’s name out of your mouth, you creep! She hates you.” She picked up the phone and called Jane in the lab.

“Are you okay?” Jane said. She must’ve seen her name on the caller ID.

“No. Phillip Agar is _saying your name_ while he promotes his dumb Alpha Project on television, it made me mad and I had to tell somebody,” Darcy said.

“He is such a basketcase. He’s probably his own test subject,” Jane said. Agar had hit on Jane at one of those tech conferences once, but she thought he had a weird sour smell, like moldy clothes. More importantly, he’d ranted on and on about legalizing prostitution and dismantling the social safety net to “unburden the wealthy;” he could have smelled like warm cotton towels (Jane’s personal kryponite) and had a warehouse full of astronomy equipment and Jane still wouldn’t touch him with a ten foot pole.

“This is why I keep telling you the humanities are important. You let nerds with emotional issues just major in computer science and only talk to machines. They never have to practice empathy in any form and then _blam_ , you get that guy and his Alpha fixation,” Darcy said. They’d often speculated that Agar was a Beta masquerading as an Alpha by taking weird experimental supplements. Then he’d emerged with this new project. It was the most high-profile of a series of scientific endeavors designed to create more Alphas. Most of it seemed to be based on wild stereotyping of the other two types as weak and a bizarre fetishization of perceived Alpha ambition and workaholism.

“Speaking of Alphas with fixations, your Alpha keeps casually walking by. I think he’s delivered paperwork to five different people on this floor,” Jane said.

“Oh God, how obvious is he being?” Darcy asked.

“He’s actually being really subtle for an Alpha. I don’t think anyone else would notice. It’s just that every time he walks by the glass lab wall, he half turns his head towards your chair and then deflates a fraction when he realizes you’re still not there,” Jane said. “I’m waiting for the call.”

“The call?” Darcy said.

“For him to finally break and call me from his desk phone to ask where his baby is,” she said snarkily.

“You’re enjoying this,” Darcy said. “Bad Jane.”

“Are you enjoying this?” Jane asked in a whisper. “Sleeping under any new blankets or lighting some candles today?”

“Nooooooo,” she said. “But I still really don’t understand why people worship Creepy Agar anyway. He invents a ride-sharing app and now people treat him like he’s Jesus or an expert on living? Why is being rich the equivalent of having actual character?”

“You’re changing the subject,” Jane said.

“I am not, this was my original subject,” Darcy said. She sighed.

“What?” Jane said.

“Bad cycle,” she said. “I can’t relax.”

“Well--” Jane said.

“Don’t you say it. I’m hanging up now,” Darcy said.

 

Darcy looked over at the wicker chair next to her bed. She’d draped Brock’s t-shirt over the chair back. She sworn to herself that she wouldn’t touch that at all during her cycle. She was seriously tempted, though. She kept catching little whiffs of it that were surprisingly pleasant. The hormones involved in your cycle usually increased your sensitivity to smells. How would he smell up close when her nose was the most acute? But no. The only reason to familiarize herself with his smell was if she planned on getting involved with him. And clearly, he wanted commitment, not a casual fling. An actual freaking bond. Sure, the sex would probably be amazing, but Darcy knew you traded your independence for pleasure. She wouldn’t tolerate a hovering Alpha mate well. And Brock instinctively hovered. He fretted when she was fifteen minutes late for lunch. She tried to imagine what that would be like. He would probably fuss about her cholesterol and make her give up Cheetos. Would he want her to exercise?  She wouldn’t be able to just pick up and go with the flow like she had all her adult life, following after Jane like the Coffee Dispensing Duckling of Team Science. Once they were bonded, _he_ would be the center of her life. Breaking bonds--legally possible, but less common than divorce among Betas--took a year of official separation before a judge would even look at your paperwork. A lot of couples never got to that year because they kept reuniting and breaking up again, redrawn into messy, dysfunctional relationships because the pull of physical attraction between pairs was so intense. You saw those couples fighting in public a lot, then usually groping each other in the damn Starbucks parking lot. And how would she deal with being publicly out as an Omega? The whispering, the comments, the public scrutiny, it was a lot. What had ever happened to that Omega Darcy had seen at eleven, she wondered. Was she happy? Was her Alpha still telling her that she needed to be less shy and cupping her chin in his hands? Were they still together? Darcy had been so busy looking at the woman, it was easy to forget that the women looked back, too. She wasn’t just some beautiful object, she was a person who saw that other people looked at her with discomfort, pity, horror, envy....What was that weird philosophy line? “If you gazed too long into the abyss, the abyss looked back at you?” She googled it on her phone. Of course, it was that asshole Nietzsche. It was always him.

 

Darcy had made the mistake of taking a sexuality-focused nineteenth-century material culture seminar at Culver once. Nietzsche was the guy that people quoted to justify Alpha dominance and Omega weakness. The idea was that Alpha power and Omega submissiveness were innate and it was equality between the two that was immoral. The Alpha was _naturally_ superior to the Omega. You shouldn’t disrupt the natural order of things. Some people had actually argued that Omegas shouldn’t be allowed to vote or own property in their own names because they’d basically been subsumed into a legal entity with their Alpha when they bonded, a legal doctrine that was called _couverture_ (until the 1970s, many American states hadn't let bonded Omegas have credit cards or bank accounts in their own names as a result of  _couverture)._  These ideas had been really big in the nineteenth-century, when Alphas were supposed to keep their Omegas docile and silently adoring in public. The Victorian Omega was “the Angel in the House,” after all. That had manifested itself, paradoxically, in a fad for luxury items that identified you as a well-kept Omega on the rare times when you went out: ornate lock & key or heart & arrow motifs, necklaces meant to worn down the back instead of the front, so-called Omega bracelets with Greek letters for Alpha and Omega that locked on (your Alpha usually wore the key in some highly visible way, like on a watch fob, a brooch, a hatband, or a lapel pin). There had even been a big fashion in Omega-focused corsetry for men and women that thinned the waist and accentuated the hips, that some people guessed had become popular because it looked better when you were presenting. It was taboo to talk about sex, but not to display it in oblique ways. Darcy had argued in her final essay that the Victorians were actually publicly eroticizing the Omega, despite their protestations that sex was a private event between a bonded pair and that the Omega was the most private of persons (there was an southern American axiom that a “well-brought up Omega’s name only appeared in the paper on three occasions: his or her birth announcement, wedding announcement, and obituary;” if you appeared in the paper for any other reason, well, what had you been up to? Nothing good). She’d traced that eroticization in material symbols through early twentieth century “French postcards”--early centerfolds basically--that often had Omega motifs. Lots of them were just images of women and men posed to mimic presenting or sleeping nudes with symbols and motifs that had become linked to Omegas around them: three-leaf clovers (submissiveness), red roses (passion), harem imagery. Lots and lots of harem imagery.

 

The Nietzsche ideas about innate power and strength still got quoted (or misquoted, depending on your view) by some fringe Alphas, too. The Nazis had taken lots of those themes and run with them, in ways that made the Victorians seem almost quaint and tender. At least publicly, Victorian culture had said Alphas had a responsibility not to be cruel to their Omegas, comparing the relationship of the Alpha and the Omega to Christ’s and the Church. Nihilism had made it possible to discard even the pretext of compassion towards Omegas. Darcy had heard that the HYDRA remnants that they’d run out of SHIELD several years ago--there had been an attempted coup--had been very big into the whole blended Nazi-Alpha scene. It was some dark stuff. All discipline and punish. It suddenly occurred to her that Brock had probably been undercover then. All the current STRIKE people were either post-HYDRA newbies or former triple agents who’d survived the HYDRA thing. Shudders. She’d probably been in Norway with Jane while he wandered around some Nazi-themed sex den with Alexander Pierce or those other HYDRA weirdos, like that von Strucker guy. Who still wore a damn monocle, like a Nazi Mr. Peanut.

 

Instead of touching Brock’s t-shirt, she got a bag of dark chocolate Milanos from the kitchen and rage-ate a few of them while she channel-surfed. She just needed to relax somehow. The stupid culture sucked sometimes. Darcy thought she might be happier if she was just a little bit dumber and less educated. Ignorance might actually be bliss. Or she could be like that really weird Omega in her Western Civ class who’d told Darcy that she thought everything was simpler “back in the day, when Omegas stayed home and you, you know, killed your own chickens.” Darcy could grasp how it would it be nice to have a home and a family if you had a partner you adored, but what the heck was the whole chicken thing about?  
  


***

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Shit. Fuck,” Brock muttered as he ran laps around SHIELD’s indoor track.

“You having trouble, mate?” Jack said, joining him.

“No, just usual reconditioning bullshit,” Brock said. “Tired.”

“Uh-huh,” Jack said. Casually.

“What?” Brock said.

“It’s like you said, just tired,” Jack said.

“Just fucking say it, Jack,” he said.

“Why not ask Jane Foster where she is?” Jack suggested mildly.

“I don’t know what the fuck you mean,” Brock said.

“So, you wouldn’t mind if Martinez tries to court Darcy Lewis?” Jack said.

“Wha--the fuck, Jack, if Martinez even makes a goddamn move, she’ll think I’ve been running my mouth--how did he fucking know?” Brock said.

“He doesn’t,” Jack said cheerfully. “I lied, mate.”

“Well, keep your goddamn mouth shut, she don’t want nobody to know she’s an Omega,” Brock said grimly.

“Bit tough with you sending her stuff and then walking by every five minutes, ain’t it?” Jack said.

“Shut the fuck up,” Brock said.

“Your accent gets more Brooklyn when you get upset, mate,” Jack said.

“I’m from the Bronx, Cap’s from Brooklyn, goddammit,” Brock said, shaking his head.

“I can’t tell the diff-o, mate,” Jack said, shrugging. “But why not ask Foster?”

“I’m trying to give her space,” Brock said, pausing to wipe sweat off his forehead.

“Why?” Jack said.

“Because she doesn’t want to be courted and I’m waiting for her to decide if she wants me or not, fucking Christ,” Brock said.

“That’s all?” Jack said.

“What do you mean, that’s all? This is a big fucking deal. I never thought my mate wouldn’t want to be courted. I didn’t even have a plan for that,” Brock said.

“Oh,” Jack said.

“Much less that”--he lowered his voice--”she’s spent her whole adult life passing. That’s fucking up my head.”

“Passing?” Jack said.

“Pretending to be a Beta,” Brock said quietly. “That’s usually because your family makes you, but she swears it’s her choice.”

“Isn’t it?” Jack said, befuddled.

“Who would choose to pass?” Brock said.

“Well, in Australia, Omegas aren’t as into this visual typing stuff as you are here. Everybody just does as they like. None of this appearance coding in Perth, let me tell you,” Jack said.

“How do you tell if someone’s an Omega? Smell?” Brock said. Jack shook his head.

“You have the weirdest thing about smell of any Alpha I’ve ever met. You engage them in conversation and then later on, they tell you their type, if they feel like it’s your business to know,” Jack said. “Nobody runs about in hot pants in winter ‘cause they think the Alphas’ll get confused otherwise.”

“Oh,’ Brock said. “So, how do they dress?”

“According to the bloody weather,” Jack said. They were both silent for a minute. Brock spoke first.

“My smell thing isn’t weird, it’s a traditional Alpha skill set, goddammit. It’s not my fault everybody else decided to concentrate on sight-based skills. I use it at work,” he said.

“To smell Lewis in the elevator?” Jack said archly.

“I didn’t intend for that to happen,” he said. “It was fate.”

“Also, the hallways this morning?”

“She’s been gone for two days. Where did she go?” Brock said. “What’s she doing?”

“You’re worried about who she’s doing,” Jack said wryly.

“Don’t talk about her like that,” he said. “She’s not somebody I want talked about.”

“Americans are so weirdly Puritanical,” Jack said, shaking his head. “The Alphas in this building trash talk Omegas--”

“I do not do that,” Brock said. “When have I ever?” He wiped his face with the towel. “Show me the receipts, motherfucker.”

“All right, many Alphas talk about so and so’s bitch, but the minute it’s _their_ Omega, suddenly it’s a whole different standard. Why not just be respectful all the time?” Jack said.

“I thought I was being respectful,” Brock said. “Had all these things I’d planned, thought about for years---she don’t want ‘em.” He rubbed his arm and sighed. “Has me all fucked up.”

“What kinds of things?” Jack said.

“Gifts, mostly. Activities--don’t smirk like that, I meant nice ones, asshole—not just fucking,” he said.

“You bought the gifts already? Before you met the Omega?” he said.

“Yeah,” Brock said. “Some of them. My family’s very traditional about things. It’s what we do. My sister started her Lane chest and her savings account at fifteen, I started buying late, actually.”

“What’s a lane chest?” Jack asked, carefully avoiding the bitterness in Brock’s tone.

“A big cedar box you can put linens in and shit,” Brock said.

“Oh. We call that a glory box,” Jack said.

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Brock said.

“I thought your sister was an Omega?” Jack said.

“Yeah, she is,” Brock said.

“So, she bought gifts for herself?” Jack said, confused.

“No, she just, you know, planned on things like they would happen _soon_ and it worked out for her. She and Jennifer have been together for fifteen years already. I’ve been waiting, thinking it would all work out as intended and--” he sighed.

“Now you think it’s not going to?” Jack said.

“I dunno,” he said. “I thought--there were all these things I was putting off because I thought I would do them when _she_ showed up, that were, you know, couple things--”

“Couple things?” Jack said.

“You try being the forty year old single Alpha at the Whole Foods cheese class,” Brock said. “A solo Alpha my age is a red flag for some people. You tell ‘em you work for the federal government in a classified capacity and everybody starts backing away and shit. They think you’re a goddamned serial killer. What?”

“I could’ve gone to cheese class with you, mate. I’m a little wounded you didn’t think to invite me,” Jack said.

“Eh, it was a spur of the moment thing. I was there that Saturday after the Kashmiri mission. Somebody canceled and I got 5% off Havarti for taking the class. I didn’t plan it,” Brock said.

“Oh,” Jack said, mollified.

“I’m just so tired of being unbonded. It’s draining to be this disconnected,” Brock said. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anybody else have a hope chest/Lane chest/cedar chest in the family? My mom had one she kept quilts and stuff in until a few years ago, actually, and she got married in the early 1980s.
> 
> Do they say hot pants in Australia? IDK, I just really wanted Jack to say hot pants.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reginettes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own nothing! Thanks for your comments and kudos! Y’all are the best!

On the third day of her misery, Darcy finally gave in. She got out of her bed, grabbed Brock’s shirt, and crawled back into bed with it. She was fully prepared to throw it across the room if it stank, but she had to know. She sniffed tentatively at the collar. “Oh God,” she moaned, burying her face in the cotton fabric. “You asshole,” she said out loud. His t-shirt smelled _perfect_. The loud patchouli element that had bugged her before her cycle had softened and smoothed out, so that it smelled like an earthy, spicy chocolate caramel. The perfect balance between sweet and potent. The patchouli note was just present enough to be compelling, without getting on her nerves. She knew it was his natural smell, too, because it clung particularly to the places that held sweat. “I’m so fucked,” she muttered. “So fucked.” She wanted to rub that damn t-shirt all over her body. Darcy reluctantly put it down on the pillow next to her. She pulled her own pajamas over her head, so she could wrap herself in his shirt. “Ughhhh,” she moaned, nuzzling the fabric.

 

***

“Jane, I’m wrecked,” Darcy whispered into the phone that afternoon.

“What?” Jane said. “Are you okay?”

“His t-shirt smells incredible now. I need another day,” Darcy said.

“You need another day to spend quality time with his t-shirt?” Jane said, snorting.

“Don’t tease me, I’ve never felt this good in my life,” Darcy said. “Do you think Thor could steal more of his clothes for me from the gym? Would Loki help if I bribed him with, like, something green? Shamrock shakes, emeralds, cash, whatever?”

“Why don’t you just sleep with him?” Jane whispered.

“Because, Jane, I’m terrified I’ll be powerless to resist if he wants to bond with me. Then, he’ll be leading me around by my Omega bracelets and you’ll be making your own coffee,” Darcy said. “Do you want to make your own coffee?”

“Nooooo,” Jane said.

“Oh, Janey, he smells so good. I’m afraid I’ll end up doing that adoring gaze thing Nancy Reagan used to do during Ronald Reagan’s speeches if he gets his teeth in me,” Darcy said, a mournful note in her voice.

“Nancy Reagan?” Jane said in confusion.

“Just imagine me staring at him like the sun shines out of his ass while he tells a boring joke at his SHIELD retirement,” Darcy explained. “Or you could google it.”

“Would it be so bad to be in love with someone?” Jane said gently.

“I’m going to forgive you for saying that, because you’re in a relationship with Asgard’s cuddliest marshmallow and can’t possibly expected to understand my nightmares about some Alpha snapping their fingers at me in public or some shit,” Darcy said, sighing. “That happened to Mike.”

“Mike Thompson?” Jane said.

“Yeah,” Darcy said. “I ran into him at a mall last year with his new Alpha. Total asshat. The Alpha had wandered off and we were catching up and then she came back and just _snapped her fingers_ at Mike to indicate it was time to go, wrap up the conversation, whatever. She couldn’t be bothered to let him catch up with a college friend. Mike looked so embarrassed.”

“Ughhhh,” Jane said. “Let me guess, one of those Alphas with an unsmiling Facebook profile photo who wears reflective sunglasses indoors because they think it makes them look tough?”

“You know it. Why is it always Oakleys?” Darcy said.

“Enjoy your t-shirt time, Darce,” Jane said.

 

***

Her phone was ringing, Darcy realized vaguely. She was somewhere past her fifth orgasm for the morning; she’d lost count. Her brain was all fuzzy: she was drifting between blissed-out and dazed. It felt just like being drunk and listening to rhythmic music. Kirtan or something. She and Jane had gone to a kirtan event with a New Age-y acquaintance in New Mexico on a lark once. Darcy had snuck in mini plastic bottles of wine and cracked jokes, until the combination of music and drunkenness had put her into a weird headspace. It wasn’t bad, just relaxed and floaty. She wanted to stay there. Possibly forever. Just float happily away, like a spark from a bonfire. She was all warm now. So warm and relaxed. The phone rang again.

 

Ughhhhh, she thought, go away phone.

 

But the phone kept ringing. It was Jane calling to check in, she thought, lifting her face out of Brock’s t-shirt and hitting the accept call button with her free hand. It took a few attempts. “Helloooo?” she said woozily. “Janey?”

“Baby?” Brock’s voice said thinly through the speaker.

“Ahhhh,” Darcy said, pulling her hand back sharply. She almost knocked the phone off the nightstand.

“Darcy,” she heard him say. “Are you there?”

“Uh-huh,” she whispered, putting the phone to her ear. Her heart was suddenly racing, she realized. _He would hear her voice and he would know. He would know everything. Oh noooooooooo,_ she thought. “I’m here,” she said, trying to sound calm. Her words were all slurry. She felt an alarming urge to laugh. Nervous laughter bubbled up in her chest.

“Look, I don’t want to bother you,” he began, “but, uh--are you okay?” She’d giggled. _Shit._

“Ummmm, yes?” she said, dissolving into laughter. “Oh God,” she said, between bursts of anxious giggles. She felt giddy. It was a weirdly buzzed feeling. The sound of his voice had her all messed up. She tried to bury her face in the pillow, but she’d fallen half-asleep with his shirt there, so she was hit by another reminder of him and another weird bubble of laughter. She hiccupped. “Oh, nooooooooooooo,” she groaned.

“What’s wrong?” he said, sounding alarmed.

“Hiccups,” she said. “I _haaaaaaate_ hiccups, Brock. Whoops. I said your name. Shouldn’t have done that.”

“Why can’t you say my name?” he asked. “Is something wrong? Where are you?”

“I can’t tell you,” Darcy said. “But it’s totally your fault. You did this.” She poked at the phone.

“Tell me, okay? It’ll be all right,” he said. He sounded like he was using his hostage negotiation voice. Did he have one of those? All calm and friendly and _I promise not to shoot you, just put the gun down_.

“Noooooooooooo,” she said. “Can’t.” She hiccupped again. “Not putting it down, either,” she said, holding onto the t-shirt.

“Darcy,” he said. He’d shifted to a more serious voice. “Are you drunk?” he said. “Did I do something to make you upset? Where are you?”

“Nuh-uh,” she said, shaking her head. “You can’t make me tell, I don’t care how good you smell. Nobody makes me. Nobody.” She hiccupped.

“Okay,” he said, sighing. “Do I need to get Jane? What if I get Jane? Darcy?”

“Mmm-hmm,” she said. “I’m going back to sleep. I’m keeping it. So nice, Brock.“

“Wait, for God’s sake,” he said. “Don’t pass out--it’s dangerous if you’ve been drinking--”

“‘M’fine,” she said, shaking her head and hanging up the phone. When it rang again, she put the phone farther away from her face and nuzzled his shirt again.

 

***

“You got two choices here, Foster. Either you tell me where she is, so I can go check on her or you figure out what the hell is going on,” Brock told Jane. He’d gone to the lab. Thor looked up and grinned at Brock’s back. “She sounded drunk on the phone,” Brock told her. “Where is she? Where is this family emergency?”

“She’s okay. I’ll check on her tonight,” Jane said.

“I want someone checking on her now, Foster. What if she vomits and asphyxiates?” he said anxiously. “She could be not breathing right now.”

“You’re very alarmist, aren’t you?” Jane said. “Does your mind just go there naturally or is this a Darcy-specific reaction?”

“What?” he said.

“Do you frequently negative thought spiral or engage in catastrophic thinking?” Jane asked calmly.

“Are you trying to bait me?” Brock said. He looked at Thor. “Is she fucking with me?”

“Possibly, but I find it rather entertaining. My friend the good Captain Rogers has taught her--what do they call it, Jane?” Thor asked.

“Trolling,” Jane supplied smoothly, tapping on her keyboard. Thor beamed at her.

“She has such talent,” he said proudly.

“No, I’m not a neurotic, okay--why aren’t you concerned?” Brock said. “You’re her friend.”

“Don’t worry about Darcy,” Jane said. “She’s perfectly fine. I talked to her earlier and nothing’s wrong.” She had to suppress a grin; Darcy must be having a lot of fun with that t-shirt if she was so blissed-out he thought she was drunk.

“Fine,” he said crisply. “But if anything happens to her, the people responsible will be dealing with me, you understand? From here on out.”

“Are you calling dibs on the ability to beat up hypothetical antagonists?” Jane said dryly.

“Yes. Yes, I am,” he said.

“You should know that she hates Alex in the coffee shop downstairs. She’s always asking Darcy if she wants skim milk in a passive-aggressive way,” Jane said. “I’m going to slap her eventually, I’m just never there when it happens.”

“What?” he said.

“She’s implying Darce is fat, hellloooo,” Jane said.

 

“Shall we tell him?” Thor said, as he watched Brock walk away. Thor, ever romantic, thought the match should be given a gentle push. “His attachment is clearly sincere. He is bewitched, Jane.”

“No,” Jane said, shaking her head, “she wouldn’t want him to know. She’s not ready. She may never be ready.”

“But you do not want me to sneak out his bag?” Thor said.

“No,” Jane said, shaking her head. Thor and Jane had discussed the implications of raiding his gym locker. Jane was concerned that longer exposure might only increase Darcy’s dependency on him, like an addiction. She’d had a high school friend who developed an obsession with an Alpha who’d spurned her: she’d tried to prolong the warm fuzzies by hanging onto the Alpha’s possessions and had alcoholic-like DTs and other frightening symptoms when the Alpha’s scent eventually faded.

“Can I not help in some other way?” Thor said.

“You’re too sweet,” Jane said, coming to sit in his lap and kissing him. “You want everyone to be happy.”

“No,” he said gently, “I want Darcy to be as happy as we are.” As Jane rested her head on his shoulder, Thor contemplated all the tricks he’d ever learned from his brother. There were quite a few love tricks, as it happened.  

 

Downstairs, Brock swung by the coffee shop and ordered an espresso. “Where’s Alex?” he asked the cashier.

“She’s not in until tomorrow morning,” the cashier said.

“Tell her I need a word about how she treats customers. Commander Rumlow,” he said.

“Yeah, I know, sir,” he said nervously. Everybody knew Rumlow.

“Good,” he said. “Tomorrow.” He nodded. If he couldn’t find Darcy, he could at least do that. When she came back from her trip, things were going to be different, he thought. He was going to start handling things for her. If she didn’t want physical gifts, he’d start with acts of service or whatever the fuck they called it. Make himself useful. The phone call had made him feel helpless and, oddly, frustrated. Almost nervy. How drunk had she been?

 

***

Darcy rolled into work the next morning, still feeling slightly warm and fuzzy. She stopped at the SHIELD coffee shop with Jane. “The milk steamer sound is so pleasant,” Darcy said. Jane laughed.

“I’m glad I picked you up, you’re still totally high,” Jane said, as they stood in line. Someone turned on a burr grinder and Darcy refrained from saying she liked that sound, too.

“Here’s your regular caramel macchiato. I’m really sorry,” the barista said suddenly. It was that Alex girl who was always so weirdly rude to her for seemingly no reason.

“What?” Darcy said.

“I shouldn’t have said those things about skim milk. I apologize,” she repeated. Behind her, Jane snorted.

 

“What’s happening?” Darcy asked Jane, confused, as they left and got on the elevator.

“Rumlow stomped into the lab yesterday and wanted to be first in line to smite your enemies. I told him about Alex. He must’ve handled it,” Jane said.

“Oh, God,” Darcy said. “He’s intimidating people for me now?” They’d talked about the phone convo in the car on the way to work. Darcy was trying to figure out how to handle seeing him. She was terrified she’d start giggling like a fourteen year old with a crush. Maybe she’d get lucky and it wouldn’t be a few days.

 

The elevator doors opened and he was standing there with Jack. Rumlow immediately shifted. “G’day, Darce, Jane,” Jack said cheerfully.

“Hi, Jack,” Jane said.

“Hi,” Darcy said, grinning in spite of herself. They stepped onto the elevator. Rumlow half-turned to look back at her.

“You doing okay?” he asked. “Family emergency all settled down?”

“Yes,” Darcy said, pressing her lips together to repress a grin. Did he know what her _family emergency_ had been? Technically, she guessed it could be called a family planning emergency? She had to push back a giggle.

“Good,” he said. He turned back. Could he smell her? He had his back to her. She could definitely smell him now, a low hum of earthiness and sweetness that edged at her consciousness.

God, his shoulders were nice. She was mentally adding his arm tattoos to her fantasy reel when he said something to her. “----have a word?” he was asking, still doing that half-turn thing.

“What?” she said, refocusing. The elevator doors opened on their floor. Jane got out.

“Talk to you for a minute?” he repeated, hitting the door open button.

“Jane needs my help in the lab,” she lied. She did not have enough willpower to have a private conversation with him right now. She gave Jane a pleading look.

“I do,” Jane said, waving to indicate that Darcy needed to hurry up. “You’ve missed some things.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, “I gotta go.” She stepped around a frowning Rumlow. Luckily, some of her high dissipated throughout the morning and she felt more like herself, less like Sex-Drunk Giggles Darcy. They just needed distance, she thought. Safe. Distances were safe. Proximity was the opposite of safe.

 

Then he showed back up at noon. “Can I take you to lunch?” he asked her. She was typing up notes and looked up at him. Jane had gone with Thor on an equipment errand; what they were buying was heavy and Jane wanted to pick it out herself. Darcy sighed internally. She should have gone with them instead of staying.

“Nope, too busy,” she said, trying for casual. If they went off-premises, she’d be even weaker and more vulnerable to doing something stupid, like crawling into his lap and never leaving. Stay strong, she told her ovaries. Don’t look at the pretty eyes, she thought. Or the pretty face. Pretty hair. Pretty cheekbones. Pretty five o’clock shadow even. That was new.

“Baby, it’s just lunch,” he said insistently, squatting down to be at her eye level. “You need to eat.” His eyes--brown with little flecks of green--were so gorgeous. Ooops, she’d looked at them. Bad Darcy, she thought.

“I brought my own lunch,” she said, “so there’s no reason for you to be worried about my calorie intake.” She typed something else, misspelling about half of it.

“Do you remember talking to me? You weren’t well yesterday,” he said, brushing her hair off her shoulder. She felt a shiver of attraction. “I was worried. How much did you drink?” he asked. His nostrils flared and she had a sudden fear that he’d realize she wasn’t floating on a cloud of booze, but sex hormones.

“Less than you’d think,” Darcy said, looking away so she wouldn’t breathe on him. Too late, she realized she was inadvertently flashing him her neck and jawline. What if he found that appealing?

“Darcy--,” he said intently, leaning in close.

“You haven’t shaved,” she said, trying to change the subject.

“Sometimes I don’t,” he said. “You mind?”

“It’s really not my business,” she said.

“You want to make it your business?” he asked flirtatiously. Darcy rolled her eyes.

“Nope,” she told him. “I really have work. You’re calling attention to me, by the way.”

“What’s wrong with attention? I tried to be subtle, but you weren’t here to see it,” he said. He grinned. “I missed you. I’m happier when you’re in the building. I’ve felt good all morning.”

“How can you be happier when I’m the building?” Darcy said. She shook her head.

“You’re Prozac in person form,” he said.  

“Bullshit,” she said.

“You make Jane and Thor happier, too. It’s not just me,” he said. “You smell incredible today. I keep getting little bursts of coconut and clementines along with the pineapple. Maybe a little vanilla?”

“Uh-huh,” Darcy said dryly.

“Show me your lunch?” he asked.

“It’s in the fridge,” she said. He got up and looked in their mini fridge. He clucked his tongue.

“Key lime yogurt and granola? That’s too little food, baby. Come with me to lunch. I’ll make sure you get plenty of nice carbs. You like pasta, right?” Brock asked.

“People will see,” Darcy said.

“You can meet me down in the garage, I go to lunch with work friends,” he said, looking over his shoulder. Was he purposefully trying to get her to look at his ass?

“Nooooooooo,” Darcy said, imagining somewhere too quiet and romantic. He was in too flirtatious a mood to pick a safe restaurant, she thought.

“Okay,” he said. He stood up and went to the door.

“You’re leaving?” Darcy said, surprised--and a little disappointed.

“I’ll be around,” he said. “Subtly.”

 

Despite her best efforts, Darcy laughed. She even told Jane and Thor about it when they got back. Brock showed up a few minutes later with food. “What are you doing?” Darcy said, as he walked in with bags.

“Bringing you lunch,” he said calmly. “I’ve got eggplant lasagna, chicken parmesan, and mafalda with mushrooms. How’d I do? I’ve got lunch for everybody. Looks less conspicuous, right?” He set the bags on the table and started unpacking them.

“Oh,” Jane said, looking torn. She loved eggplant lasagna. “Can we eat that?” she mouthed to Darcy. Darcy rolled her eyes. “Please?” Jane mouthed, making a sad face.

“Give the eggplants to Jane, she loves them,” Darcy said.

“I thought the quilt was very pretty, too,” Jane said, taking the lasagna foil container and getting forks for her and Thor. They liked to share food.

“Traitor,” Darcy said. Brock raised an eyebrow at her.

“Which one do you want?” he asked.

“The mushroom one,” she said.

“You sure? I don’t mind if you want the chicken? I don’t call dibs on the protein,” Brock said.

“Darcy loves mushroom pastas,” Jane said from across the room. “They’re her favorite.”

“They’re your favorite?” Brock asked. He looked down at her with an unreadable expression.

“What?” she said.

“Would you like to go with me to Cap and Barnes’ foundation thing?” he asked, handing her the container and a fork. Steve and Bucky were hosting a benefit to help rebuild areas impacted by  raids on HYDRA bases. Darcy had been invited, of course.

“How would that be lowkey?” she asked. ”Besides, Steve already invited me himself. I’m going with them. We all got tickets,” she said, gesturing at Thor and Jane.

“Why don’t we sit together? That could be lowkey,” he insisted.

“Now who’s stubborn?” she told him pointedly.

“Just sit next to me,” he said.

“Okay, fine,” Darcy said finally. “I think it’s a bad idea, but ask Steve to put you next to us. But you have to be cool at work.”

“How cool?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Darcy said. “I don’t want people talking about me.” She took a bite of the mafalda. They were little ruffly pasta pieces. She had to keep herself from making a happy noise.

“Do you think I’d let people talk about you? Disrespect you?” he said. She looked at him.

“No,” she admitted. He’d terrified a freaking barista this morning, he might actually murder someone who asked how she liked her Vitamin K. “This pasta is really good,” she said.

“I know,” he said. “It’s my favorite, too.”

“Why did you let me take it?” she said, surprised. She wasn't used to that: one of her most loathed Alpha relatives-by-marriage was notorious for taking all of her favorite foods and not sharing them with her Omega, who was Darcy's uncle, and their children. Darcy got angry every time she thought about the time the Alpha had eaten several slices of pizza in front of their sad five year old without sharing a single bite. Then there had been that other relative's birthday party where the Alpha had refused to give the same child  _birthday cake_ while everyone else had some. Darcy had pointedly cut the little boy one piece and then a second, because the Alpha had no freaking claim on her.  _Fuck them, they're both assholes_ , she'd thought. And then:  _That bond made my uncle small and mean. He wasn't like that before he met her. Sometimes, he opens his mouth and it's like his Alpha is talking, not him._

“You wanted it,” Brock said after a pause. "Why wouldn't I give it to you?" 

"Oh," Darcy said. “Let’s split the two. Put some of your chicken in mine and I’ll give you some of my mushroom pasta?” She caught Jane grinning at her over Brock’s shoulder, but ignored it. He was looking at her a little strangely. “That’s not off-putting to you, is it? Germ-wise?” Darcy asked him. Some people were funny about drinking after one another or eating off the same plate or foods touching.

“No, no,” he said.

“I actually really like garlic,” she told him. He nodded as if this was a perfectly reasonable thing to say and they divvied up the food. She had to stop him from giving her the lion's share--ironic, she thought--of the chicken.

“You know, in Italy, they sometimes call these pasta shapes reginettes?” he asked, stabbing the mushroom pasta with a fork and giving her a quick flash of a wide grin that was totally different from his usual cryptic smirk. Darcy shook her head. She didn’t get it and his smile made her dubious about asking. Darcy didn’t want her lunch ruined with a dirty joke or something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Head canon for the last scene:
> 
> Darcy: “Brock didn’t take his favorite dish and give me whatever else was left? ” (*anxiety/rage memory spiral about Alphas bullying children*)
> 
> Brock: “She likes what I like?! I wonder if she'd like that place with the lemon pappardelle on K-Street?” (*is delighted*)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of course Darcy loves chocolate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own nothing! Thanks for all your comments and kudos.

Brock came back to his office after lunch in a happy mood. Being around Darcy felt _right_ to him on an instinctive level. The feeling of rightness grew whenever she was around. The more he looked at her, the more he noticed how astoundingly beautiful she was, too. He wasn’t sure how he’d missed it at first: the fullness of her mouth, the beauty of her pale skin, the curvaceousness of her shape. He even liked the way she made faces, laughed, and did funny little gestures when she talked. Darcy was entertaining. They’d reenacted her tasing Thor for him; someone had actually stopped by the lab in alarm when they heard the thud Thor made as he hit the floor. Darcy and Jane had a kind of shorthand for communication that involved significant looks, eyebrow raises, and hand signals that he couldn’t quite interpret yet. But he wanted to learn. They could have that, too. If he could win over Jane, she would be a fountain of information on things Darcy would like….in the meantime, he would start sending her things at home. Quietly. Maybe candy. Or coffee. Nothing aggressive or public. He would ask his sister Lisa for ideas; she was good at presents, anyway.

“You sound happy,” Steve said to him after he’d been in the room for a few minutes. STRIKE Alpha had an open plan office to “promote team morale” and Captain America’s desk was a few feet from his own.

“Hmmm?” Brock said.

“You’re humming,” Steve said. “You don’t hum.”

“Was I?” Rumlow said. “Huh.” He thought for a second. “Cap, I need a favor.”

“Yeah?” Steve said, sitting up a fraction. Rumlow was asking for a favor. He wasn’t a guy who usually asked for things. Did he want an autograph for a relative or to introduce Steve to someone? That was the normal favor Steve encountered at work.

“I need to sit at Lewis and Foster’s table at your benefit thing,” Rumlow said quietly. “Next to Lewis.”

“You want to sit next to _Darcy_?” Steve said, surprised. He knew Darcy was an Omega; she’d said something that tipped him off when he’d first made his public statements on his relationship with Bucky about how he must be “relieved not to hide anymore.” Steve had realized instantly that Darcy was posing as a Beta. She wouldn’t have thought about it that way had she not understood the repercussions of hiding. He’d paid careful attention afterwards--her dynamic with Jane was a platonic version of an Alpha-Omega bond, when you thought to look--and realized that her nice smell wasn’t perfume after all. It could be difficult to tell natural scents from cosmetic ones in a world so full of scents, sights, and noises. It was one of the reasons dressing for type had become popular, he thought. But Rumlow and Darcy? The were an unlikely pair. Steve had always assumed that Rumlow must be extremely picky about his Omega, given his indifference to some of the very attractive Omegas Steve had seen approach him in public.

“What’s that mean?” Rumlow said tightly, tilting his head in a way that Steve recognized as him showing a kind of calculated, cool aggression. Steve had to suppress a laugh: He’d seen Bucky make the same face seventy years before, when people said “ _that’s_ your friend?” about his pre-serum self.

“I didn’t think you even knew each other,” Steve said. “I’ll put you next to her.”

“Just, uh, keep this quiet, please? She doesn’t want a lot of work gossip,” Rumlow said. Steve heard a thread of concern in his voice.

“Okay,” Steve said. “Will do.”

“Thank you,” Rumlow said. Steve glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. Rumlow was actually beaming to himself, he realized. How funny, he thought. Darcy was the kind of person who introduced him to cheese grits (Steve loved them), cussing coloring books (“Look, Steve, you can make art with _language!_ ”)  or bought Captain America-themed Uggs as a gag gift (“They’re so comfy, Steve! You can wear them at home”). He suspected she expressed her Omega traits by trying to bring you fun. Or coffee. Sometimes brownies. Her Andes mint brownies were great. He’d never imagined that Rumlow would be attracted to her, though. He’d thought Darcy would end up with a more laid-back, amiable sort of Alpha. The Jack type, really. Not Rumlow. He’d imagined Rumlow ending up with one of those Omega fitness models whose photos were always being shown around.

 

One of the surprising things for Steve when he got out of the ice was the fetishization he’d realized was popular for Omegas of both sexes. He had been horrified to find that waxing, plastic surgery, and clothes that exaggerated sex-characteristics were a major fad, touted as ways to help you catch the most powerful Alpha and achieve fame in suitably “soft” Omega ways to attract a high-status partner, like as a Youtube celebrity, a yoga teacher, or a model. Tony had found it particularly funny to forward Steve articles about anal bleaching, post-Mpreg “mommy makeover” surgeries, and Omegas who practiced Omega-fetish corsetry to exaggerate their figures while presenting. Then there were the Omegas famous for having plastic surgery to resemble living Ken and Barbie dolls (one had cited him as an inspiration) and online movements of Alphas who promoted “mail order” Omegas from poorer countries as more naturally docile and submissive. The shock of it had all made Steve feel a little queasy. All that stuff had been underground during his childhood, not the norm. The Depression had tamped down a lot of the type dressing fads: people had been too poor to spend a lot of money on appearance and less appearance-focused in general. At most, he remembered that there had been a trend for Omega women to set their hair in certain ways and embroider Omega symbols on homemade items. Omega men sometimes parted their hair differently, if they were signaling to an Alpha potential mate. His Irish-born mother--an Omega like him--had stitched Omega clovers and Celtic love knot symbols into their Sunday best handkerchiefs. Being a male Omega in 1920s and 30s Brooklyn was viewed as dubious; then, as now, the best type for an American man to be was an Alpha. But Steve had never let the taunts and schoolyard whispers make him back down from a fight. He considered himself lucky to be raised by an Irish mother, too.

 

In Ireland, there were folk traditions that Omega children were gifts from the fey and linked to the very fertility of the soil itself. Some Irish nationalists had even taken up the Omega male as a symbol of identity, claiming that the nurturing Irish Omega was a better steward of the land than the greedy and violent Alpha, a veiled stand-in for the English and the elite Anglo-Irish landlords. There was even a brief political fad for male Omega-female Alpha matches in Ireland, with many (presumably straight) nationalists claiming that poets and warrior queens were a particularly patriotic Irish pair bond. Patrick Pearse, the poet, Gaelic speaker, and leader of the Easter Rebellion of 1916, had written poems personifying Ireland as a victimized Omega with interwoven imagery of a resurrected Christ as Omega Triumphant.

 

Now, being an Omega meant that people said, ‘Oh, like that reality show girl with the eighteen inch waist? Do all Omegas have such small waists?”

 

***

 

Darcy didn’t see Brock all of the next day. “You’re looking for him,” Jane said, grinning, when she caught Darcy looking at the clock around one and checking the hallway again.

“I thought he might bring lunch today,” Darcy admitted. She felt a weird pang. Where was he? She was getting all fidgety. She wanted to smell him.

“Maybe he’s on a mission?” Jane said. “You could text Steve?”

“Nooooooo,” Darcy said.  If she gave a little, he’d have all the power, wouldn’t he? Did she want him to know how attracted she was now or later? It was difficult to decide. There was such a bizarre range of conflicting advice about how to ‘handle’ an Alpha. If he was purely interested in her as a challenge, he might lose interest if she returned his affection too quickly, the modern courting guides she’d glimpsed in childhood had said; it was better for the Omega to hold the Alpha at bay emotionally, keep them on tenterhooks, play it like a game. Be coy. Flirt with other Alphas, they’d advised. That was the recommended route if you wanted to encourage someone to bond with you. But coy felt fake to her. She’d always considered it deeply messed up advice.  Wasn’t it better to be forthright and open? Just tell him that she was attracted to him. But if he was truly infatuated, she was nervous he’d push for a bond. A real commitment. She would have a difficult time rebuffing that when he was knot deep in her, she knew. Why did he even want to be bonded so badly? It was perplexing to her that someone like him would want a long term commitment. Of course, she wanted him, but not necessarily all the stuff that came after--not that she was sure what it would be exactly.

 

When Darcy got home from work the night, she found a small box on her porch. She opened it. Inside she found a note from Brock: _Not a courting gift. Just a gift. Can I be your Beta boyfriend on the DL?_

She snorted. He had a sense of humor. He wasn’t boring, either. What had he sent her, she wondered. They were Butler’s truffles. Dark chocolate ones and white chocolate ones infused with champagne and coated in a pink candy shell. There was a bottle of prosecco, too. Freaking adorable. “Did you tip Brock off to my love of champagne and chocolate?” Darcy said, once she’d called Jane.

“No, why?” Jane said.

“He sent me prosecco and the cutest truffles. Like, Laduree levels of cute. It’s very annoying that his learning curve is so rapid,” Darcy said. “These things are, like, crazy pretty. Almost too cute to eat.” She snapped a photo and sent it to Jane. They looked like they could be on the cover of one of those travel memoirs about living in Paris or something.

“Those are cute,” Jane said.

“Ughhhh, annoying,” Darcy said.

“Is it really annoying?” Jane said quietly.

“Kinda. I don’t know. He’s such an Alpha, Jane. What happens next?” Darcy asked.

“What do you mean?” Jane said. “Talk it out to me.”

“You mean, like that thought exercise your therapist had you do in London, when things were bad?” Darcy asked. Jane had been depressed over her career, Thor, the whole shebang. Her therapist had advised her to vocalize all her worst-case scenarios and then think of ways to adapt or recover from them. It was supposed to help you regain your internal locus of control (i.e., the idea that you could change things) when you felt disempowered.

“Yeah,” Jane said. “Talk it out. You start seeing Rumlow, what happens then?”

“We start seeing each other,” Darcy said out loud. “He hovers. He wants to lead me around in public. Or worse, he bullies me,” Darcy said.

“But can’t you do something about that?” Jane said. “Leave?” Her voice was gentle.

“Possibly. It might mean breaking the bond,” Darcy said. “You would help me, wouldn’t you? Even if I broke a bond?”

“Darce, of course we would. Put that worry out of your mind. Thor and I would always help you. Loki would probably hide you on Asgard, Tony would offer you a place to stay, Steve and Bucky would insist you move in with them, you’d have all kinds of people who could help you,” Jane said. “Natasha and I would actually kill him and hide his body, okay?”

“That’s true,” Darcy said, feeling slightly lighter.

“What if you start seeing each other and it doesn’t go like that? Are there other ways it could go?” Jane asked carefully. This had been her therapist’s method: map out various possibilities. Hear them out loud.

“Yeah,” Darcy said. After her reaction to Brock’s scent and the way he’d behaved at lunch, she could imagine him being different from her initial fears. She was so attracted to him.

“Tell me about those?” Jane said.

“We start seeing each other and the chemistry is fantastic. He _doesn’t_ do the bad Alpha thing. He’s actually wonderful. I get more addicted to him than I am to coffee--don’t laugh, I think it could happen. We go public at work. I start overhearing people talk about me and I get really upset. He’s constantly having to get people to shut up...”

“What do they say, Darce?” Jane asked softly.

“Well, the really gross guy on STRIKE Echo calls me ‘Rumlow’s bitch,’ that’s one I’ve always worried about when I was with an Alpha. Being talked about like I was somebody’s possession in a degrading way. That’s probably the lunkhead reaction. That and lots of jokes about how much I love his vitamin injections, those were always the things I feared,” Darcy said wryly. She was trying not to sound like she could cry.

“And what could you do about that?” Jane said.

“Tell them to go fuck themselves, send Thor to hit them with Mew-Mew, let Brock rip them into tiny pieces, probably. But there are worse ones I didn’t really anticipate,” she said. She sighed and paused.

“Tell me about the worse ones?” Jane said.

“Oh God, Jane, he’s just so---” Darcy said. She stopped.

“So what?” Jane said.

“So freaking eligible, you know? That’s going to be the thing. I always thought my match would be, well, more like me, even if they were an Alpha? I thought my match would be low key Alpha,” Darcy said.

“You think he’s really your match?” Jane asked quietly.  

“Absolutely, yeah, but…” Darcy said.

“But what?” Jane asked.

“We’re a Mutt and Jeff match. We’re not what people expect together. We don’t go together,” Darcy said. “Steve and Bucky go together. People are going to ask me how I _landed_ him or whatever. Make jokes about how I bonded up and he bonded down. Probably look at me funny because all my pants are leggings with elastic waists and I’m short and I don’t have visible abs or whatever. I’ve seen the way that people talk shit about bonded couples when one half of the couple is just a normal person and the other half is really gorgeous. The fact that I’m an Omega means that they’ll be sexual jokes and comments, probably. That I must have some good shit, stuff like that.”

“What do you do about that?” Jane asked.

“Laugh, make sarcastic jokes, pretend not to be bothered, be secretly upset. It eats away at our bond, we start to fight because he doesn’t understand why I’m upset,” Darcy said.

“What if you tried something different?” Jane said.

“The only other thing I could think of is trying to meet those unspoken expectations: go on a diet, get painfully constricting outfits, take up running and doing a million crunches,” she said, sighing.

“What if you talked to Brock instead?” Jane suggested softly.

“There’s two ways that could go, Jane: he tells me he loves me just the way I am, which is sweet, but does nothing to make the nagging voice in my head stop, or he encourages me to jog and eat kale and it breaks my heart that he didn’t choose the first option,” Darcy said.

“There could be a third option ,” Jane said. “Let’s brainstorm an option, okay?”

“There’s no third option,” Darcy said glumly.

“Do you think I haven’t heard that, too? Me and Thor not being perfectly matched, that I’m lucky to have him?” Jane said pointedly. “I mean, his dad called me _a goat_ , Darcy. I know exactly how you’re feeling right now. If you really think Brock Rumlow can make you happy, you owe to to yourself to tell those people to fuck right off,” Jane said decisively.

“I forgot about the goat thing,” Darcy admitted. “I was wallowing, I’m sorry.”

“As you can tell, I’m totally over it,” Jane said sarcastically. “But that doesn’t mean I’m giving up what I have with Thor. Nobody’s ever, ever supported me the way he does--except you and Erik and my parents, okay? So, you put yourself first, whatever you decide to do.”

“Yeah,” Darcy said. She thought about Brock for a while.

“Darce, you still there?” Jane asked.

“Yup,” Darcy said. “Why is Odin such a dick, by the way?”

“Old bastard doesn’t get enough Odinsleep,” Jane cracked. They both laughed.

“I can’t stop thinking about him,” Darcy admitted. “Is this what it was like with Thor?”

“Uh-huh,” Jane said.

 

Darcy had a weird thought that night before bed: she wondered what had made Rumlow smile so strangely the day before. What was it about that pasta? She googled. What had it been called? Maltadas? No, it was mafaldas, but he’d said they had another name. Reginettes. She’d assumed it might be a joke. But it turned out that reginette meant “little queen” in Italian. Did he mean _her_? She didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to understand him, Darcy realized. Or maybe it was like the radio: they were AM and FM. She’d never offer someone commitment the way he’d offered it her, so soon, based entirely on a gut feeling (or smell?) about being a match. She wouldn’t chase people, either. She was really sensitive to rejection and would have backed off if someone treated her the way she’d treated him. Maybe she lacked a gene for that kind of, just, putting it all out there? Or you just got it with the gene for jumping out of quinjets with a gun?  She put her face against his t-shirt. The smell was fading, but she could still get a fix if she closed her eyes.

Darcy didn’t see Brock at work for two days. Supposedly, he was on an overseas mission. It made her itchy. She sat in the lab and tried not to scratch red streaks on her arms. They weren’t even bonded and she was itchy. It was like wearing an uncomfortable sweater all the time. Or that time they’d found fleas on Clint’s secret dog at Tony’s (they did not tell Tony about the dog or the fleas, they just got a Capstar and had housekeeping--everyone loved Lucky--help them hide that they were washing all the beds that Lucky snuck into). “Ughhhhhhhh,” she said.

“What’s up?” Jane said.

“I’m itchy. Lucky with fleas itchy,” Darcy said.

“Rumlow?” Jane said.

“Mmmpfh,” Darcy said noncommittally.

“Darce, will you go shopping with me for a dress for Steve’s fundraiser tonight?” Jane asked.

“Okey-dokey,” Darcy said. It was always fun to get Jane out of holey plaids and into lady clothes. She wore clothes well, especially considering she wasn’t really interested in them.

 

***

 

“What are you going to wear?” Jane asked, when they were thumbing through racks at a department store.

“No idea,” Darcy said. She usually wore the same dress to fancier things, but someone had accidentally spilled red wine on it at Tony’s last party.

“Why don’t you look for something?” Jane suggested. “Like this? You’d look good in this?” It was a beautiful red halter dress.

“Mmmm,” Darcy said. “I’d have to tape the girls in probably.” She didn’t want to bother with boob tape and spend all night checking to make sure the girls weren’t making a run for the border.

“What kind of dress would you want?” Jane asked. Jane liked certain colors--lavender, plum, pale blue, cream, beige--and tended to pick her dresses by color and simple silhouette. She was eyeing a strapless purple dress with a thin black belt. Very elegant. It always blew people away to see Jane in lady clothes.

“That’s beautiful,” Darcy said. “Perfect for you.” She was shifting the racks aside when she saw a dress. She pulled it off the rack and looked at the back and the front. It was a simple dress, with a high neckline, long sleeves, and a bit of detailing at one hip. It reminded her of dresses she’d seen in 1930s films. The material was slinky. Comfortable-feeling. From the front, it looked very plain and almost boring. It had caught Darcy’s eye because it was totally backless. No one would think anything of it from the front, but when she turned around, she’d be giving Brock a view of lots of skin. She knew that some Alphas found backs particularly erotic. Did he?

“Isn’t that a little plain?” Jane said. Darcy turned it around. “Oh,” Jane said.

“I’m going to look for some jewelry,” Darcy said. She had an idea.

“Oh, tell me,” Jane said.

  


She had come home from dress shopping--her dress was in a garment bag slung over her arm--when she realized there was a shadow on her ground-level porch. It was dark and rainy and at first, she’d assumed it was just a trick of the light, but then the shadow moved. Cursing internally and juggling her umbrella, she got the taser out of her purse and put her finger right over the button. “Okay, asshole,” she said. “If I drop this very expensive dress tasing you, I’m going to tase you more than once. This is your chance to hop over that railing and run instead of pissing me off.”

“Darcy, it’s me,” Brock said, leaning into the light. He was soaking wet. “Can--Can I come in?” he asked. He sounded oddly shaky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My inspo for Darcy's dress is one Kate Hudson wore to the SAG awards in 2010: https://virtuesofbeauty.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/katehudsonsagawards2010.jpg
> 
> Frank Grillo has a really great beaming smile, actually. You never see it in CA:CW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGl92iBG4g4


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Imagine how stressed Jack was....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own nothing! Thanks for all your comments and kudos!

“What’s wrong?” she said, closing her damp umbrella and dropping it on her porch. She went over to him, momentarily heedless of the garment bag or her other bags. “Are you hurt?” she asked him.

“No, no, uh, I don’t think this is an outdoors conversation,” he said. She noticed that his nostrils were flaring and he was taking slow, deep breaths, like ujjayi breathing. The tremor in his hands had abated slightly.

“Okay, let’s go inside,” she said. She unlocked the door and carried in her things. He followed a bit tentatively, watching as she dumped the bags on a bench near the door, paused, then reconsidered. “You can sit,” she told him. “I’m just going to hang this up. Lock the door behind you, please?”

“Yeah,” he said. She heard the deadbolt click into place as she was in her walk-in, smoothing the dress on it’s hanger. When she came back out, he was still standing there in her foyer, looking slightly lost and dazed. She was looking for a sign of injury--blood, bandages, something like that--when he moved suddenly. He wrapped her in his arms. “Is this--is this okay?” he asked, his face pressed against the top her head. He was huffing in and out.

“Yeah,” she said, curling her own arms around his back. He was all muscle, lean and solid. “What’s going on, Brock?” She nuzzled his neck, inhaling his scent--that sticky-sweet, patchouli-laced caramel--as she put her nose against his throat. He shivered in response to her touch.

“Did you know you get symptoms like coming off alcohol or drugs when you miss your match? I didn’t know that could happen with unbonded couples,” he said in a muffled voice. “First, I was all fucking itchy, then I had anxiety. Kept thinking something bad would happen to you, couldn’t shake the feeling of dread. Started craving weird things, like broccoli--”

“Broccoli?” she said.

“I don’t even like broccoli,” he said in a miffed-sounding voice. “I had Jack running around trying to find me American-style ginger-broccoli on a damn mission.”

“I do,” she told him. “Favorite vegetable. Broccoli, onions, and potatoes. Broccoli’s a good source of magnesium--”

“Why are you so calm?” he said suddenly, pulling away from her a fraction. “You’re calm. Oh my God, you--you don’t miss me, do you?” He sort of did a weird backwards stumble, like he wanted to flee, but his body wasn’t cooperating.

“I was itchy,” she said. “Scratched my arms all up.” She pulled up her sleeve, so he could see how pink her arms were. “But I have a secret weapon.”

“A secret weapon?” he said, pushing his wet hair off his forehead. He reached out and held her forearm with both hands

“Uh-huh,” she said. “Did you want to see my secret weapon?”

“Do I?” he said, in an almost worried voice. She grinned and took his hand, leading his to her bedroom doorway--she’d left the door half-closed. She pushed it open and flicked on the light. His black t-shirt stood out against her sheets. She had his quilt at the foot of the bed, too. But she preferred the t-shirt. “Oh,” he said, blinking slowly.

“I really like the way you smell,” she confessed. “I almost had Thor steal some of your gym stuff, actually. We discussed it. Jane was afraid I’d develop a dependency on the smell of your socks or something?”

“You like the way I smell?” he said, his face breaking into a sly grin.

“Mmm-hmm,” she said. “You’re a little rough around the edges, but you smooth out.”

“I do,” he said, nodding and leaning towards her. When he kissed her, he tasted like something savoury and gingery. That wasn’t bad, either.

“What if you get dry and I make coffee?” she said, when they broke apart. “You’re a little cold.  Take off your coat, stay awhile. My coat hanger’s by the bench. Are you hungry?”

“Maybe,” he said. “My appetite’s all out of whack. I could drink coffee, though.”

“Okay,” she said. “Grab a towel from the bathroom towel rack. I’m going to start the coffee.” She pointed to her guest bathroom. She went back into the kitchen and was filling her coffee pot reservoir with water, when she realized he’d taken off his jacket and was standing there with a towel around his neck, hovering at the edge of the linoleum, as he dried his hair. His t-shirt was mostly dry--the bottom edge was damp--but his jeans were still wet from the rain.

“Can I help?” he said.

“I’m perfectly capable of making coffee by myself,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said. “I just want to stay close to you.” She snorted. “Why is that funny?” he said.

“I dunno,” she said. “It’s weird for me that you want to follow me around like a, uh, um--.” Darcy had thought of a metaphor, but she thought it might insult him.

“Like a what?” he said. She shook her head. He’d reminded her of a very serious herding dog she’d met. Her friend Trina’s German Shepherd. King was very sweet. The first time Darcy met him, King had ambled up to her car when she opened the door and deposited his favorite tree root in the floorboard with utter seriousness. He’d wanted her to throw it. That was his way of being friendly. The root had been the size of Darcy’s head. Whenever she went to Trina’s, Darcy had been amused by the way King trailed all the members of the family, paying careful attention to Trina’s little brother. He’d apparently decided that guarding the baby was his job. Lots of Trina’s friends had been scared of him, but Darcy had seen King let Trina’s little brother yank his ears, crawl on him, and generally treat him like a rug with no aggression whatsoever. Of course, Darcy was biased: she’d had Shetland Sheepdogs growing up and liked herding dogs best. Her favorite Sheltie, Ladybug, had nipped your ankles to herd you around the house and would “tattle” on other dogs who got in the trash by barking. Herding dogs were clever. You could see their minds work, trying to figure things out sometimes. Ladybug had liked to drink your coffee. Once, she’d been coffee begging when Darcy’s cousin had been drinking apple cider and let her sniff the cup: she had visibly recoiled and looked betrayed when she found, not the promised nectar of bean, but whatever that godawful apple stuff was.

“I’ll get you some clothes. I think I might have something of Thor’s,” Darcy said. She sometimes did Jane’s laundry--just to force her to change clothes during Science! Binges--and had a stack of clean things on the dryer. “Here,” she said, bringing a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants to Brock. “Change into these, you’ll feel better. Wet jeans suck. We can put your stuff in the dryer.”

“Okay,” he said. Almost obediently, she thought. She suppressed another laugh. “You’re not going to tell me what you were thinking?” he said, catching her expression of mirth and stopping in the bathroom doorway.

“You remind me a little of a German Shepherd,” she told him.

“Oh,” he said.

“Jane’s a total Border Collie--highly intelligent, absolutely work obsessed, will eat your floorboards if you don’t give her a job to do--Thor’s a very happy-go-lucky Labrador who loves swimming and fetch, Loki is either a whippet or a greyhound, and I’m never sure what I am,” she explained. “That’s my people-as-dogs system.”

“German Shepherd?” he repeated.

“Did you or did you not station yourself on my front porch in the rain?” she said. “Plus, Thor told me you can practically smell explosives, that’s very German Shepherd.”

“But you don’t know what you are?” he said.

“For awhile I thought I was that happy Pomeranian in the Terminator 2 gif where he walks through the bars?” Darcy said. “I think that’s a metaphor for my life sometimes. I’m just sailing along happily thinking, oh I can make that gate, no probs, and _whomp_ aliens or whatever,” she told him. “Then I met a puggle--it’s a pug-beagle mix--that I thought I had a special empathetic connection with, but it turned out she just wanted my Cheez-Its and does those cute sniffles at everybody.”

 

She had finished the coffee-making, brought the mugs in the living room, and was retrieving some cookies she had stashed in the pantry when she realized he must be out of the bathroom. He’d started the dryer. Then she heard him sink down onto her couch with a sigh. “The remote’s on the coffee table,” she called.

“I want to hold you,” he said suddenly. “How you feel about that?” Darcy came around the corner holding the cookies, then stopped. He was lying on her couch, shirtless, in Thor’s sweatpants.

“That’s a lot of…..muscles,” she said, struggling to process. Her brain had sort of stalled and she was having trouble making words.

“C’mere,” he said, gesturing with his hand. He gave her a familiar little smirk. She remembered that. That was his day one smirk. He’d made that same face at her when she’d asked if he needed anything.

“What are you plotting? You look very recovered,” she told him. “Mmm-hmm, yup, totally fine, definitely you’re not particularly suffering right now.” How did his abs look better lying down, she wondered? Was that a thing they did, when you had them? She’d never really examined that particular question, but Jane might have input, re: shirtless Thor.

“Oh, I’m suffering,” he said, putting one arm behind his head. “I need you close.”

“I’m not having sex with you tonight,” she said, putting her hands on her hips.

“Nope,” he said. “You’re not. Suppressants.”

“Oh,” she said.

“You look disappointed, baby,” he said, grinning. “You disappointed?”

“No,” she said stubbornly.

“C’mere,” he said again, reaching a hand out. “I think I’ll make a full recovery if I get a little skin contact with you?”

 

They were cuddling when Brock chuckled wryly. “This is gonna be so much worse when we’re bonded,” he said. She’d taken her shirt off and was snuggling him in her cami. He wasn’t wrong about the exposed skin thing. She felt very soporific and relaxed, like she’d just had a massage.

“What?” Darcy said.

“Separations are worse after the bond. I really will need to switch to desk duty. That was always my plan, anyway,” he said.

“You have a plan for when we’re bonded?” she asked.

“Not us, specifically, no. I just always thought I’d quit field work when I met my match, stay closer to home,” he explained.

“What if you miss your job?” she asked, thinking of Jane. He smirked and gazed at her décolletage. His tongue flicked over his lips.

“You think field work compares to you? I’m gonna be all kinds of whipped if you feel half as good as you smell,” he said, grinning. Darcy rolled her eyes.

“What makes you think I’m even going to agree to that?” she said.

“You don’t want to be bonded ever?” he said, sitting up a fraction.

“There are downsides,” she said.

“Like what?” he asked.

“No emotional privacy when our moods are linked, being visible”--she considered her fundraiser dress a tentative test of being out--”the whole issue of babies, my job with Jane…” The last one made her upset.

“Hey, hey,” he said. “I’d never make you quit, okay? I’d quit and I’d follow you. Always. You could work for Jane for as long as you felt like. I’ve done everything I can do in my job, I can go now. It’s probably time, anyway. I was just waiting for you.”

“What about babies?” she said.

“You want ‘em, we have ‘em. You don’t, we don’t,” he said firmly, rubbing her back. “I wouldn’t mind a little you, though.”

“A little me?” she said.

“She’d be so spoiled,” he said, chuckling.

“What would a little me be like?” Darcy asked carefully. She thought this might be a good test of how he felt about her.

“Wonderful,” he said. “Clever and funny. She’d do great impressions of her teachers and be so smart that she’d get in trouble for half-assing her homework so she could read books or whatever she felt like instead. Hard-headed, too.“ His voice was fond.

“You’d love a little me, huh?” she said.

“You know it,” he said seriously. He grinned. “Can you see it? A tiny little you with missing front teeth and very strong opinions about the correct ratio of hot chocolate to marshmallows in her cocoa, telling me ‘ _No, Daddy, you gotta put more marshmallows in the cup first’._ How could I not?” Darcy gave him a long look. “What?” he said.

“I was just thinking,” she said.

“About us?” he said, looking hopeful.

“Uh-huh. What happens when little me turns eleven and finds out she’s an Omega because some Alpha guy in his forties smells her in a restaurant and tells her she’ll be a pretty Omega one day?” Darcy asked.

He sat up, alarmed. “What? That’s how you found out?” he said. Darcy nodded.

“My mom’s an Alpha, but Alpha parents sometimes don’t smell their children, you know? Because she didn’t see me that way, it was a surprise. I’d been thinking I was for sure a Beta, so it frightened the hell out of me….”

 

She put her head down against his shoulder.

 

“I can’t believe someone smelled you in public when you were _a child_ ,” he said suddenly, sounding furious. She told him all the details, including the Omega’s visible mark and how her Alpha had paraded her around. He went rigid underneath her, jaw working, neck tight.

“You wouldn’t want that for little me,” she said, more as a random thought than a question.  She played with his hair.

“I’d lose my fucking mind,” he said, eyes wide. “Is that what it’s really like?”

“It wasn’t that way for your Omega relatives?” she asked.

“No, no,” he said. “My sister found out from her doctor. Lisa was, like, fourteen and so happy not to be the baby anymore. She wanted to know. She always wanted to be an Omega, too. My Ma used to joke that she was such a natural diva, she had to be either an Alpha or an Omega. She loves being the center of attention.”

“I have, like, absolutely no idea what that would be like,” Darcy said.

“Uh-huh,” he said dryly.

“What?” Darcy said.

“You aren’t even comfortable being the center of _my_ attention,” he said.

“No,” she said, wondering how people would treat them as a couple.

“What can I do about that?” he asked.

“What? Make me comfortable with your attention?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Pay less attention to you at work?”

“Noooooo,” she said. “I liked you having lunch with us.”

“Good,” he said. “I can start dropping in when I’m in town,” he said.

“I’d like that. I like you being here now,” she admitted. He grinned. They had napped for awhile until she caught him looking thoughtful. He’d frowned. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“How did your mom react? When she found out you were an Omega?” he asked. He stroked her forearm with his tanned, neat fingers.

“My mother is a very intellectual Alpha, not a physical one. She masters situations with her brain and her ability to sway people. Once  she got over her shock, she started to plan. She got me suppressants, got my doctor to look the other way, convinced the school that I had an unrelated medical condition whenever I had a breakthrough heat. The plan was, I would stay a Beta until I finished high school and college. She was a single mom when I was really young, so she was especially nervous about me being manipulated into sex and getting pregnant before I had enough education to be financially stable. You know, all the “Omegas with babies from multiple Alphas” stereotypes, which is just a nasty shorthand for getting pregnant young and not being rich enough to paper over it with a big wedding to make it presentable,” Darcy said. “She didn’t want me to be hurt more. My dad bailed when I was a baby. I don’t know why, but I think he just couldn’t bond properly with either of us.”

“I’m sorry, honey, I’m sorry,” he said. She felt enormous relief that he didn’t say anything about her reconciling with her father (people often suggested that) or minimized her experiences.

“Thank you for validating my reality,” she joked, curling up on his chest. He was right about skin-on-skin. She found it very calming. It felt good to be with him.

“Mmm-hmm,” he said stroking her back soothingly. They were both quiet. At some point, Darcy fell asleep.

 

She woke up in her bed and smelled coffee. “Brock?” she called. There was no answer. She shuffled out into the living room. It was empty, too. He was gone. Darcy suppressed a deep pang of disappointment. It was seven am. Before he’d left, he’d programmed her coffee maker to work automatically in the morning and left her a little note: _Pizza tonight? Here at 8:30?_

She texted him the word yes. She wanted to say yes to him a lot. What would that be like, she wondered? If she started saying yes instead of no?

 

He arrived--with her favorite pizza--that night just as she was removing her second-favorite brownies from the oven. She’d made them dark chocolate with white chocolate chips, just for the contrast between the bitterness of the dark chocolate and the rich sweetness of the white.  “How’d you know Gino’s was my favorite pizza?” she asked, as she let him in.

“I promised Jane more eggplant-based dishes if she gave me a cheat sheet of things you like,” he said. “What smells so incredible? Besides you?”

“Brownies,” she said.

“I like your brownies,” he said later. They were making out on her couch.

“You do?” she said happily.

“I like tasting them on you best,” Brock said.

“Mmm-hmm,” she nodded.

“Tell me when you’re ready to go further, okay?” he said, kissing the top of her cleavage.

“For both of us to stop our suppressants?” she said, raking her hands through his hair. She’d been thinking about it all day.

“Yeah,” he said. “I mean, if you want?” He tried to mask his surprise. He’d assumed she’d want to fool around without knotting first. He didn’t mind.

“I’m ready,” she said. He lifted his head in surprise.

“So soon? You sure?” he said carefully. “I don’t want to pressure you. We can take time--”

“There’s a long weekend that starts right after Steve’s fundraiser on Friday,” she said. “Federal holiday. We both have time off, if there are no emergencies.”

“I’ve covered for a few other people, I could call in a favor,” he said.

“You could?” she said, surprised.

“Side benefit of being the workaholic single guy,” he said wryly. He ran his eyes down her body. “Days and days,” he said to himself.

“Uh-huh,” she said. “And then we can discuss...other activities.” She meant bonding. He nodded.

“No rush,” he said. “We’ve got all the time, baby. I’m not going anywhere.”

  


***

 

Jane and Thor were on a double-date with Steve and Bucky on Wednesday when they decided to walk around the fancy DC shopping center and window shop. It was one of those new open pedestrian luxury malls with upscale restaurants and expensive stores. They’d gone to the restaurant first and been told their table wouldn’t be ready for thirty minutes or so; Steve had one of those reservation pagers tucked his blue jacket. “It is very cheerful here,” Thor said, his arm around Jane. “Much more pleasant than the shopping of Puente Antiguo,” he said.

“Yeah,” Jane said. “This is called mixed-use. It’s the new fancy thing.”

“Mixed use?” Bucky said, filing it away for future reference. He liked to blend in and learn new vocabulary. He and Darcy had hit it off when she signed him up for one of those word-a-day emails as a surprise. Only it was word-a-day slang, so he was constantly reading Steve some crazy sex term that Steve swore had to be fake.

“What was shopping in Puente Antiguo like?” Steve asked, his fingers entwined with Bucky’s metal ones. It was still thrilling to have Bucky back. Steve didn’t like letting him go. Bucky teased him about being clingy when he felt the waves of _touch touch touch_ flowing from Steve since they’d bonded, but Bucky was secretly delighted to wake up with Steve’s arm slung over his metal one. He’d realized that Steve unconsciously followed him across the bed, even in his sleep.

“Old,” Jane said. “We had one nineteen-fifties strip mall with an ancient Kmart. I bet it’s closed down now.”

“Hey, now,” Bucky said. “That’s not that old. Unfair, doll.” Steve grinned slyly.

“He’s sensitive about his age,” he said. “He’s older’n me by a few months.”

“Cute, Punk, cute, but I remember when you got your ass kicked all over town and needed me to save you--” Bucky was saying when he froze. The gentle aura of affection Steve was feeling was replaced by something between upset and anger.

“What, Buck?” Steve said, instantly afraid that Bucky was experiencing a traumatic flashback.

“Look,” Bucky said quietly. Steve felt the upset shift totally to anger. Brock Rumlow was entering a store ahead of them, his arm around an attractive brunette in a tight pink dress. The brunette was not Darcy. This woman had waist-length hair and a deep tan. She looked like she might be in her thirties, but it was obvious she was an Omega. He could smell her scent: a boozy caramel, he thought. Was that an edge of something herbal? Lavender? Jane--who’d turned when Bucky spoke--immediately headed in that direction.

“It’s a jewelry store,” she said grimly to Thor, when he caught up with her. The two of them were inside, peering at cases. With his enhanced hearing, Steve could hear them clearly, even through the store’s glass windows, the piped-in music from the mall, and the passing shoppers.

 

_“What about this one, Buttonhead? You like that?” Brock was saying, tapping a glass display._

_“It’s pretty, but eh,” she replied, walking over. “Not special enough for this.” Brock laughed. She checked her hair in the jewelry store’s countertop mirror and smoothed her hands over it, pursing her lips in a kissing motion._

_“You gonna play with your hair or help me spend my money?” he asked archly, reaching over to muss her hair on top._

_“Cut it out,” she said. “You’re messing up all my gorgeous, you schmuck.”_

_“She’s incredibly vain,” he told the male salesman, putting his arm around her. “Took twelve selfies at dinner.”_

_“He says that, but then he always follows it up by telling everyone--” she began_

_“That she was Miss Bernardi Pasta in 1999,” Brock said, smirking. “Has a tiara and everything.”_

_“I did it for the college money,” she said. “It was a college enrichment program. Oooooh, this is the one.”_

_“Do you think I’m made of money?” Brock said. “It’s twelve-thousand dollars!”_

_“Can I see that?” she asked. The salesman brought out the necklace and the woman draped it around her neck. “It’s beautiful,” she cooed. The diamonds sparkled against her tan._

_“You just like shiny things,” Brock teased. “Besides, I’m not a college enrichment program, I can’t just go giving all my money to beautiful women.” He sighed and patted her shoulder, his expression growing wistful. “I want to, though. I would buy that if I could.” She laughed._

_“Where are your engagement rings?” she asked the salesman. “I want to see those.”_

_“Hey--” Brock said._

_“Did you say the words, “Buttonhead, I’m a different man now, I’ve never felt this way” tonight or am I hearing things?” she said sharply, taking off the expensive necklace._

_“Yeah,” he said. “I said it. I meant it. Never felt like this before.”_

_“So, start acting like a man in love for once,” she said. She looked at the salesman. “He’s never been bonded and I think half the reason is that he acts like it’s something in the future. One day, he’ll do this, one day, he’ll do that.” She grabbed Brock’s hand. “Guess what, the future is now. We’re looking at engagement rings tonight--”_

_“All right,” Brock said. “You win.”_

 

“Are they together?” Jane asked Steve. She’d been inconspicuously snapping photos for Darcy on her phone.

“Sounds like it,” Steve said. “They’re looking at engagement rings.” He could see Rumlow smiling, a big beaming smile. He was laughing a lot, too.  As Steve looked, Rumlow slung his arm around the woman and kissed the top of her head. She swatted him away and wiggled her fingers.

 

_“This one’s nice, Brock. How much is your three months’ salary?” she asked, turning the ring._

_“Not enough for that, Yisa,” he told her. “I’m a federal employee, remember?”_

 

“Let’s go,” Jane said. “I’ve seen enough.”

“You’re not going to confront him?” Bucky said.

“No,” Jane said. She wasn’t running her mouth about Darcy’s business, but she knew Darcy had planned on stopping her suppressants this weekend. She needed to tell Darcy ASAP. What if she'd already stopped them? She took one last photo of the pair leaning over a tray of rings and then marched furiously towards a side street. The three men followed her.

 

***

Inside the store, Brock waved away a tray of rings. “Nah, too blingy,” he said.

“I like blingy,” she said.

“Of course you do, Yisa,” he said. "You like big jewelry."

“That’s a very distinctive name,” the salesman said. The woman was gorgeous, he thought.

“Oh, that’s not my name,” she said, laughing. “My name’s Lisa. He just couldn’t pronounce it when I was born, so he called me Yisa.”

“We also called her Buttonhead, ‘cause she had a big round skull as a baby,” Brock said. “Giant melon head.”

“Shut up, Boneface. He is the most obnoxious big brother,” Lisa said. “It’s no wonder you’re single at your age. What kind of ring would your girlfriend like?”

“I dunno, but she’s not blingy,” he said. “She’s cute. Pretty. Feminine.”

“Cute and feminine?” Lisa said. “Like this?” She pointed to a huge pear-shaped diamond.

“Darcy wouldn’t like anything that big. She’s tiny, Yisa, she’s got small hands, she’d think that was tacky,” he said.

“Are you trying to be cheap?” she asked him.

“Of course not. She’s intelligent, too, she likes history and books and stuff. I think she’d want something dainty or, uh, antique,” he said. “She’s romantic. Like a princess, but funnier.” Lisa groaned.

“Ignoring the obvious implication that you’re saying my taste is either flashy or dumb, I hear you saying she might like an estate ring?” she asked.

“What’s an estate ring?” he asked.

“Dead people’s antiques,” Lisa said.

“I can show you,” the salesman said.

“So, she’s a princess?” Lisa said, repressing a snort. “Like Audrey Hepburn?”

“She’s that beautiful, yeah,” he said. “But...more?”

“More?” Lisa said. “More beautiful?” He tilted his head thoughtfully.

“Voluptuous,” Brock said. “She’s as beautiful as Audrey Hepburn, but with boobs.”

“Where do you get this stuff?” she asked. He shrugged.

“She’s...lush. Maybe I want to say lush?” he said.

“Great, you’re in love with a big boobed Audrey Hepburn princess who is also a lush,” she joked.

“She would probably laugh at that,” he said. “She has a great sense of humor.”

“Disney makes rings, though,” she told him.

“They do?” Brock said.

“They do,” the salesman said.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of my head canons for Brock is that he would find Darcy delicate and feminine, what with her being 5'3 and only using non-lethal methods of self-defense. Even if she was having a burping contest with Bucky in a ratty Culver sweatshirt, he'd be all, "Isn't she adorable? She's so sweet, she tased Thor instead of shooting him. "
> 
> Obligatory writing-inspo gif-set (gift set?) of Frank Grillo's amazing abs. They're ab-mazing. It's insane (although, TBH, I'm equally inspired by all those red carpet images of him just hugging everyone and being joyful and squeezing his TV-son Nick Jonas like he's his actual beloved child): 
> 
> https://roberttkazinsky.tumblr.com/post/171710925322/frnkgrillo-u-can-bet-ur-ass-my-brain-was


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lisa Rumlow is my new favorite person.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own nothing! Thanks for your comments and kudos! Y'all are the best.

“Did you stop them?” Jane said breathlessly, when she met Darcy at a coffee shop. That had been where Darcy was when Jane called. Having a French vanilla latte and reading a book. Jane had sent the three men to dinner without her, just to preserve Darcy’s privacy. Also, they were furious. Jane was concerned primarily that Darcy not go into heat during a break with Rumlow. It would be miserable for her. She’d told Thor he could hit Rumlow later, if he’d cheated; first, she had to talk to Darcy.

“Jane, I’m sure there is a perfectly innocent explanation,” Darcy told her. “But no, I haven’t stopped my vitamins yet.” They always talked obliquely about suppressants in public. Darcy didn’t want anyone overhearing them.

“Oh, thank God,” Jane said, sagging in relief.

“I’ll call him,” Darcy said.

“Do you want to see the photos first?” Jane said, sliding her phone across the table. Darcy put her own phone down, then flicked through. True, Brock had said he was working tonight--he’d lied. He and the mystery brunette seemed touchy-feely, Darcy thought, a wisp of worry rising up in her brain. She scrutinized the photos carefully. But he’d also been nosing around in her jewelry box the other night. “I’m pretty sure he’s shopping for me, Jane.” Jane looked at her for a beat. “What?” Darcy said, “you don’t think he might actually prefer me to some other woman, even if she looks like that?”

“That’s not--no, I just think I don’t want you to get hurt,” Jane said.

“Uh-huh,” Darcy said dryly.

“I really didn’t mean it like that,” Jane insisted. “It’s him, he just has a cheater’s _thing_.”

“Thing like penis?” Darcy joked. “Have you seen it? I haven’t.”

“Ughhh,” Jane said. “Again, not what I meant, Darce.”

“I’m calling him,” Darcy repeated. She dialed. “It’s ringing. Hello, it me,” she joked. “Yeah, I’m doing good, but I have a very important question to ask you--it’s very important, stop trying to tell me how much you miss me, doofus. Who is that very attractive lady you were jewelry shopping with tonight?” Darcy put her hand over the phone. “What did you say her name was?”

“Buttonhead,” Jane supplied.

“Yeah, you were seen shopping with someone called Buttonhead and the grapevine alerted me--” Darcy said wryly. She began to laugh. “Stop apologizing. Can I meet her? I’m at a coffee shop in Arlington. The Whole Bean at Market Common. Okay, yeah. Twenty minutes?” Darcy hung up, looked at Jane, and started to giggle. “That is his little sister, the pageant queen.”

“Oh,” Jane said, feeling dumb. “My bad. Oh God, I’m so sorry.”

“Go have dinner with the hunks. There may still be food left in the restaurant’s kitchen if you hurry,” Darcy said. “But first, give me a hug.”

“You’re not mad at me?” Jane said.

“Nope,” Darcy said. “You thought my man was doing me wrong and you rushed into action without letting Thor hit him with Mew-Mew? It was positively calm of you. That Mellow app is working! Two years ago, he would have been too unconscious to answer my calls.” Every day, Jane listened to soothing exercises on an app Darcy had found.  “I’ll have to make you cookie bars as a reward soon.”

“Can I have Snickerdoodle cookie bars?” Jane said hopefully. She loved them.

“Deal,” Darcy said. She was a little nervous, but she didn’t tell Jane, just watched her leave the coffee shop. What if Lisa didn’t like her? Better to meet everybody soon, she thought, to see how it would all shake out.

  


Brock arrived with Lisa some fifteen minutes later. Lisa was stunning. Darcy immediately felt short. “Oh my God,” Lisa said, hugging her, “he said you were all princess-y and I totally see it.”

“Princess-y?” Darcy said, confused. She was wearing leggings and a sapphire-colored scoop neck tee. It didn’t look princess-y to her. The most dramatic thing was the red lipstick she was experimenting with.

“You look like Snow White,” Lisa said. “You’ve got beautiful skin.”

“Um, thank you?” Darcy said, blushing.

“Don’t embarrass her, she’s shy, Buttonhead, she doesn’t chase after compliments like you do,” Brock joked. But Darcy felt wildly special when he came to her side of the table and wrapped his arms around her. She leaned into his touch and he stroked her neck soothingly. It was  the kind of touch you give someone you were already bonded with, she realized. He was publicly signalling their relationship. _Whoa._

“I’m not always shy, just about that, you know?” Darcy said. “Compliments are awkward-sauce.”

“She has no idea what that would be like,” Brock said.

“Shut up,” Lisa told him. “I’m getting an espresso, Boneface. You want one?”

“Sure,” he said, not letting Darcy go. It was a really good hug.

“You don’t have to stay with me, you can go order. I’m not mad,” she told him, looking up into his face.

“Baby, I _want_ to stay,” he said.

“Oh,” Darcy said, delighted. He wanted to stay here snuggling her in a coffee shop at eight at night while students caffeined up before parties or people stopped by on their way to see a movie? It gave her the warm fuzzies. She felt so warm that she didn’t even get self-conscious when he held her hand over the table and a couple from the office came in. The woman worked in the Archives, her husband in R&D. They greeted him and he introduced Lisa as his sister and then said, “of course, you know Darcy, she’s Jane Foster’s assistant,” squeezing her hand.

“Hi,” Darcy said, waving with her free one.

“I love your hat,” the SHIELD  archivist said. Darcy’s knit hat had bear ears.

“Thanks,” Darcy said.

“You two are cute together,” her husband said.

“I think so,” Brock said cheerfully.

 

The couple left later, but as they walked away, two college students came into the coffee shop and the woman’s voice carried inside. “You can tell she’s an Omega, she’s so pretty. I can’t believe you never noticed, Chuck!”

“You okay?” Brock asked. He’d gone a little tense when he heard.

“Yeah,” Darcy said.

“People are nosy assholes,” Lisa said, then made a dismissive noise like a fail button. Darcy burst out laughing.

“Like you’re not nosy?” Brock said. “She asked all kinds of questions about you.”

“Duh, that’s why I know. I wanna know everybody’s business, too,” Lisa said. “Especially since he’s such a weirdo. I wanted to see how you tolerated him and his weird chia seed drinks.”

“Chia seed?” Darcy said.

“Oh my God, you’ve hidden your weirdo health nut side, haven’t you? Does she know about how you read up on strange flours of, like, ground bark and make green drinks?” Lisa asked, grinning.

“He just eats pizza with me,” Darcy said quietly.

“Hahaha!” Lisa said, pointing. “You’re whipped, you’re whipped, you’re whipped.” She did a little dance in her chair.

“Shh, don’t make Darcy self-conscious.” Brock said.

“Oh, I’m not,” Darcy said, grinning. “What else do I not know about him? He was pretending to want to drink hot cocoa with our hypothetical children.”

“I do, I really do--” Brock said.

“Yeah, out of almond milk!” Lisa cracked at the same moment.

“Oh, Brock,” Darcy said sadly. “Almond milk is like liquid chalk. I feel sad now.”

“It’s not that--that weird, is it? You like how I’m in such good shape for my age--” he began.

“Has he told you how early he goes to the gym?” Lisa said. “He eats dinner at five, like our grandparents.”

“Is this true?” Darcy asked. No wonder he kept snoozing on her couch, she thought.

“Damn you, Yisa,” he muttered.

“I thought you were just lulled by my presence into falling asleep, not that I was keeping you up past your grandpa bedtime,” Darcy joked. “My feelings are kinda hurt now.” She winked at Lisa.

“Ughhhhh,” Brock groaned. “I’m going to murder you,” he told his sister.

 

***

 

“I like her,” Lisa said, when Brock brought his sister back to his apartment. She was in DC to see him while her wife Jennifer attended a conference for hospital administrators in Illinois.

“Why you tryin’ to run her off, then?” he grumbled.

“Please, she’s not going anywhere,” Lisa said, as he unlocked the front door.

“God, I hope not,” he said. “Tonight could have majorly backfired if she’d decided you were another woman, Yisa.”

“She’s very level-headed,” Lisa said. “You were right, great sense of humor, very pretty, great boobs.”

“Hey, eyes off the boobs. That’s my girl,” he said. Lisa snorted.

“Excuse me, you were the one who always wanted to date all my girlfriends,” she told him.

“Well, if you would have told me they were your girlfriends, instead of saying you were just friends and then watching Knicks games with me, I wouldn’t have asked them out,” he complained. “I was always telling people my pageant sister had all these cool, laid back friends,” he said, shaking his head.

“I don’t know why you didn’t know. Grandma Rumlow knew and she was from the old country. You can’t tell girls in Converse who like basketball are lesbians?” Lisa said.

“I just don’t stereotype,” he said loftily.  Lisa laughed, but then looked at him cannily. “What?” he said.

“You really don’t care, do you?” she said.

“Care about what?” he asked.

“That people are going to expect you to be with someone a little more sexed up and less, well, into silly fun?” Lisa said. “I mean, she has a Minion on her keychain. It doesn’t scream high-value Alpha partner.” They’d seen Darcy’s keys as she got into her car. Brock had insisted on following her home.

“What do I look like, somebody insecure?” he said. “I like what I like. I like her. Who gives a fuck what other people think if we’re happy and the people we care about accept us?”

“Truth. But you might want to work on your relationship with her buddies then, since they assumed you were Cheaterton McSlutpants,” Lisa suggested.

“Cheaterton McSlutpants? Now who likes silly fun?” he said.

“I do, I just don’t look like I do,” Lisa said. Darcy had been fun to be around. Lisa was thinking about what it would be like to advertise her love of the Knicks or wear funny t-shirts when Brock spoke again.

“What is it about me that makes people think I’m skeevy or a cheater?” he asked, sighing.

“It’s your face, Boneface,” she joked. “You got a sneaky, too-knowing mug.”

“Oh,” he said, looking glum.

“Cheer up, she likes you,” Lisa said.

“Can I show you the suit I’ve got picked out for this fundraiser?” he said.

“Ooooh, look at you, all nervous. Go get the suit,” she said. She walked over to his dinner table. He’d put the jewelry bag in his trunk before they met Darcy. “You going to give this to her before or after?”

“Before,” he called from the bedroom. “I thought she could wear it.”

“I’m sad you vetoed a ring,” Lisa said.

“She doesn’t want me to rush her. That’s the definition of rushing her. This is...slower. I hope,” he said.

“So, I shouldn’t call Catherine?” she said.

“Why would you call your ex-girlfriend? I don’t still want to go out with Katie,” he said distantly.

“No, no, she’s a very serious adult and she goes by Catherine now. She also works for those Fellini Jewels people, could probably get you a good deal on a diamond,” Lisa teased.

“Just hold that thought until I know if she wants one, okay? That’s a test. If the jewelry freaks her out, I’m just getting her gift cards to movies and hot chocolate or something. How’s my suit?” he said, emerging from the bedroom.

“It’s a good suit,” Lisa said. “Maybe ditch a tie, go a little casual, depending on what she’s wearing? Has she told you?”

“No,” he said. “I saw her with a garment bag, but she’s not telling me.”

“So whipped,” Lisa said. She did the little dance again.

 

***

 

Darcy was counting days on her calendar at home when the phone rang. She was calculating when to stop her vitamins, she thought with a smile to herself. She answered the phone with a joke, expecting Brock. “Joe’s morgue, you stab ‘em, we slab ‘em.”

“Hi,” Jane said. “Everything go okay?”

“Oh, yeah, I really love Lisa, she’s fun,” Darcy said, getting up to refill her coffee. “Also, we’re sort of out as a couple now. The McAllisters saw us together. Shazam! Get ready for work gossip.”

“Oh,” Jane said. “You’re not worried?”  
“Nope. Why, were you worried?” Darcy said.

“Um, no?” Jane said.

“What is it?” Darcy said, pouring her coffee.

“I feel like I don’t know if I should tell you,” Jane said. “We discussed it at dinner.”

“Discussed what?” Darcy asked.

“You know how Steve’s hearing is really good?” Jane said.

“Yup,” Darcy said, sipping her coffee. “Ears like a bat.”

“Well,” Jane began doubtfully. There was a long pause.

“What?!” Darcy said, feeling for all the world like a _Peanuts_ character. Linus probably. Maybe the little blonde sister waiting for the Great Pumpkin.

“Well, um, what Steve heard--he heard Brock with Lisa looking at engagement rings, Darce,” Jane said.

“Oh, shit,” Darcy said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have major mental whiplash going between this Brock/Darcy and Prova di Vita's Brock/Darcy.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Putting the fun in fundraiser

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own nothing! Thanks for all your comments and kudos!

They were going to meet at Steve and Bucky’s fundraiser. Darcy wanted her dress to be a surprise. A public surprise even. She wanted to see Brock’s face when she took off her dark winter coat. “What do you think?” she asked Jane, turning in a circle. She had a glittering, long necklace on backwards, so it drew attention to her spine. “You look worried.”

“I think he’s going to lose his mind. You’re both off suppressants?” Jane said, frowning slightly.

“After tonight we both stop them, yes,” Darcy said. “Still technically on tonight.”

“That’s a relief. He might kill somebody who hits on you in that dress,” Jane said.

“Aren’t you the one who said it wasn’t a bad thing to be in love?” Darcy said, pinning her hair so that it was off her back. She needed the dress on to make sure it looked right.

“In love is fine, driving Brock Rumlow crazy at a public event might lead to bloodshed,” Jane said. Darcy looked beautiful, but it was an alluring, siren sort of beautiful, Jane thought. Not like her usual self, really. “Do you want him to ask you to marry him?” she said suddenly.

“What makes you say that?” Darcy said.

“Because you’re wearing an astoundingly erotic dress, but it’s white,” Jane said. “It just occurred to me. Bridal white. Is that purposeful?”

“I don’t think so?” Darcy said. “Hmmmm.”

“You chose it.”

“I did,” Darcy admitted.

“Virgin white,” Jane said. “And then you told the very masculine, traditional Alpha you’re seeing that you wanted to go off suppressants.”

“Yes,” Darcy said, thinking back.

“The very, very Italian Alpha,” Jane said.

“What does being Italian have to do with it?” Darcy said.

“My deepest congratulations on your new bond, as of tomorrow,” Jane said dryly, as if it was a foregone conclusion.

“Excuse me, I’m a woman who knows my own mind. A grown woman with a college degree and a distinguished career as your long-suffering assistant, doctor,” Darcy said.

“Uh-huh,” Jane said. “Everyone who sees you and Brock tonight will know what your mind is on.”

 

Funnily enough, Darcy felt a little secret thrill. Her nervousness was mixed with excitement. She had always imagined she would dread this moment, but she found herself preoccupied with thoughts of being with Brock. Since the night they’d had such a good time with his sister, she had felt less daunted. The idea of them being a couple seemed _right._

 

***

Tony had loaned Steve one of his DC hotel’s ballrooms for the event. Steve and Bucky were meeting everyone at the door, as the official hosts. Bucky helped Darcy out of her coat, then whistled. “Doll,” he said wickedly, “that’s a very good dress. Who’s the lucky fella?”

“Brock Rumlow,” Darcy said. “He here yet?”

“Over by the bar, last I saw,” Bucky said, grinning, “but if it doesn’t work out, I’ll dance with you.” He winked at her and touched the pendant of the necklace on her back. “Steve doesn’t mind having a lady around the house, either. Says it lends the place a woman’s touch.”

“Uh-huh,” Darcy said. She knew Bucky and Steve both liked women, too.

“Buck, Brock Rumlow is going to _murder_ you if he catches you carrying on like that, even playfully. He wants to marry Darcy,” Steve said sternly in a whisper.

“She ain’t married yet,” Bucky said. “Is you, doll?”

“Nope,” Darcy said. She grinned.

“Oh my God, I’m getting you to him,” Jane said seriously. “She put on that dress and turned into a vixen.”

“You think I’m a vixen?” Darcy said, astounded.

“Your clothes are a bad influence,” Jane said. “You batted your eyelashes at Jack Rollins when Thor dropped us off out front.”

“I like her clothes,” Bucky said.

“He’s here with his boyfriend, it wasn’t like that. I just said hello,” Darcy said.

“Please, you said _hello, Jack_ in the sexiest way possible,” Jane said. She mimicked Darcy. “Ohhh, helloooo, Jack, you both look _sooo handsome_ tonight.”

“I did not,” Darcy said. “You and Stevie are paranoid about Alpha violence.”

“It is the modern scourge,” Bucky said jokingly. Darcy laughed.

 

Somewhere in the crowd, Brock Rumlow heard her and started moving towards the door. Darcy was still talking to Jane when Bucky leaned over and whispered in her ear. “Your man’s at two o’clock, honey,” he said.

 

Darcy looked over her shoulder and smiled. Brock, standing ten feet away, had frozen. He stared for a long moment and Darcy raised one eyebrow. Then he moved smoothly towards her. He came to stand close behind her, but did not touch. “Hello,” she said, turning her head so she wasn’t looking at him. Jane stepped slightly away, so they could talk quietly.

“You look incredible,” he said in a low voice. “Incredible.”

“Thank you. I like your suit,” Darcy said.

“Lisa helped me pick it,” he said in her ear. His breath ghosted across her bare skin and she shivered a little.

“I like your sister,” she told him.

“Mmm-hmm,” he said. She heard him swallow. “We’re supposed to be pretending not to be together?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“So, I should circulate,” he said.

“Probably,” Darcy said.

“I don’t want to,” he said. “I want to keep looking at you.”

“Just looking?” she said innocently. “Nothing else?”

“Dear God,” he said in a hot whisper, “you’re teasing me.”

“Maybe,” Darcy said. “I’ll circulate,” she told him, stepping away. He watched her as she went to talk to Natasha and Bruce across the room. There would be drinks before the sit-down part of the evening. Darcy stopped a waiter and got champagne as she asked the redhead about her and Bruce’s last vacation. They’d gone to Istanbul. “How did you like it?”

“It was beautiful,” Bruce said sweetly.

“He fed the street cats compulsively,” Natasha said.

“I like cats,” Bruce said.

“That’s sweet,” Darcy told him.

“He is adorable,” Natasha said.

“Do you want more drinks?” Bruce asked helpfully. He was a helpful sort of man. He went off to get them some and Natasha turned canny.

“You have an admirer, _milaya,_ ” Natasha said. “He cannot take his eyes off you.” Darcy looked. Brock was standing at the bar. Ostensibly, he was talking to Jack and his boyfriend, but his eyes were glued to Darcy’s back.

“Yes,” Darcy said, grinning, when she turned to face Natasha again.

“You are the woman he has been seeing?” Natasha said.

“Mmm-hmm,” Darcy said.

“Well,” Natasha said, “I do not know everything after all. Do you intend to kill him before or after the lovemaking?”

“Natasha!” Darcy said.

“The dress may be enough to induce a coronary now, that is all. He is not exactly a young man and rather tightly wound on the subject of his Omega, I have noticed,” Natasha said wickedly.

“I bought lingerie,” Darcy said, grinning in spite of herself. “I’ve never done that before. Can I show the website to you on my phone? I want your opinion on the most likely to make him weak in the knees.”

“Of course,” Natasha said.

 

***

There was a snafu a few minutes later, when the formal dinner started in the adjoining room. They’d screwed up the seating arrangements. “I’m not sitting with you,” Brock said coolly. Darcy could see a muscle popping in his jaw. “I’m at the next table.”

“Oh, no,” Jane said.

“I shall have the captain switch--” Thor began.

“Oh, it’s all right, isn’t it?” Darcy said, grinning at Brock naughtily. His view of her table would mostly be of her back. “You’ll still be able to see me,” she whispered.

“Uh-huh,” he said. That muscle popped again. “What’s gotten into you?” he said.

“It’s the dress,” Jane said. “It’s a bad influence.”

 

All evening, Darcy could feel his eyes on her. Several stunningly beautiful Omegas stopped to chat at his table. He rebuffed them and radiated so much intensity in Darcy's direction that the man seated next to Darcy started to look a little nervous. After the dinner was over and during the auction, Brock came to get her. “Come with me?” he asked quietly.

“Okay,” she said, getting up. The atmosphere between them felt electric. He put his hand on her back and she felt like melting. It was all she could do not to beg. _Touch me, hold me, touch me._ She was eager to sneak off with him and start their weekend alone together early. To her surprise, he took her out to a little patio off the hotel’s main restaurant. There were little tables and potted plants.

“I have something I wanted to give you,” Brock whispered. He pulled a black velvet jewelry box out out of his suit pocket. A ring box, her brain supplied. “Lisa helped me pick it out the other night,” he said. She held her breath. He opened the box.

“Oh,” Darcy said. “It’s beautiful.” It was a gorgeous pendant.

“It’s uh, camphor glass? It reminded me of you,” he said seriously. “Special, different.”

“Brock, I love it,” she said. “Will you put it on for me?”

“Yeah,” he said. He hung it around her neck, hooking the clasp, and then ran his hands down her bare back. Darcy shivered. He was so warm.

“That feels good,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said. She leaned against him and he put his arms around her waist. She practically melted into him. “You really like it?” he asked. He looked at her expression. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong? You don’t like it?”

“No, no, I love my new necklace. But Steve told Jane that you were engagement ring shopping the other night. I thought--” she stopped. Why did she feel regret? Did she really want a ring? “I guess a small part of me wanted it to be a ring,” Darcy told him.

“Really?” he said, sounding happy.

“Yeah,” she admitted. “But the necklace is perfect. I love it so much.” She was startled when she looked at him. He looked intense. “What’s wrong?”

“I’ll get a ring. The ring. I didn’t think you’d want one,” he said.

“I didn’t know I did until about a minute ago,” she admitted. He kissed her neck and the side of her face. She practically swooned.

“Makes me happy,” he said.

“Mmmm. We’re going to have a great weekend,” Darcy said. “Can we sneak out early?” He froze. “Brock?” she said.

“I want to do this right,” he said. “Traditionally.”

“Traditionally?” she said. She was confused.

“Respectfully, baby,” he said. “I want to be respectful of you, show my commitment to you.”

“I don’t understand,” Darcy said.

  
***

 

“I’m going to kill you,” Darcy said, when she located Jane and Steve inside. “You, meddler,” she said to Jane, “and you, Bat Ears,” she said to Steve, “have caused me injury. Grievous injury.”

“What’d they do, doll?” Bucky asked.

“They have deprived me of sex. An entire weekend of sex!” she hissed.

“Oh, no,” Bucky said, grinning.

“What happened?” Jane said.

“Yes, what’s wrong, Darce?” Bucky said, pretending to be serious. He leaned forward and put his chin on his hands.

“I wanted some of that hot Italian Alpha over there and now he is refusing to touch me until he puts a ring on it,” Darcy said mournfully. “I told him I’d thought it was going to be a ring and now he’s insisting that he wants to wait on sex. I could cry. I really wanted to get some, dammit. I hate you all.”

 

  
-THE END-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was writing this party scene/chapter with the idea that the story would end with them *finally* sleeping together, but then Brock's traditional instincts just stole the freaking plot and somehow, it's an A/B/O story with absolutely no sex. Darcy is so mad right now, y'all.


End file.
